Common Marking Scheme

The University use the Common Marking Scheme as guidance for markers when they are determining a grade for a submitted piece of work. This also gives you feedback on how you are doing at each stage of assessment.

Sometimes students may feel like they haven’t done as well as they would have liked. However, a lot of times that person has done well when they look at the common marking scheme.

What is it?

The Common Marking Scheme is a guide for markers and students when assessing coursework and exams. It provides guidance to students on how they are performing at each stage of their degree and shows the different grade boundaries.

The grades laying within A1-A3 are supposed to be very hard to attain, so congratulations and well done if you do! A lot of time, especially for essays, the grade of 80-85 and above will be only achievable if you submit something of outstanding quality that could be published.

Why do we have it?

The Common Marking Scheme is a good way of highlighting exceptional students because it is hard to score in the upper A grades. Moreover, it means that the value of an A is high as not many students will be getting them.

When you enter Honours year, it means only exceptional students will get a 1st class in their degree.