In the Dark

It’s August already, which means it is time once again for the repeat examination period to begin. Maynooth University has produced this nice good luck message for those resitting so I’ll pass it on here:

I was a bit surprised when I first arrived here that the August repeat examinations are called the Autumn Repeats. After all, they start on 1st August which is generally regarded as summer rather than Autumn. The term is, I think, a relic of the old Celtic calendar in which the start of Autumn coincides with the start of harvesting, the old festival of Lúnasa being when people celebrated the Celtic deity Lugh, who would bring a good harvest or who, if not satisfied, could bring his wrath in storms that would mess everything up. Lúnasa is the name for August in modern Irish; Lá Lúnasa is 1st August, a cross-quarter day lying (approximately) half-way between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox. The festival is marked in the modern calendar by a Bank Holiday on the first Monday in August (Lá Saoire i mí Lúnasa) which is next Monday (7th August), so I have a long weekend to look forward to!

Anyway, the repeat examinations start today and go on for ten days or so, except there are none on the Bank Holiday when the University is closed. As it happens, my first paper is on Saturday, so I won’t be able to collect any scripts until Tuesday 8th, on which day I have two further examinations, so I’ll have three different sets to deal with.

Every year at this time I mention the difference between the system of repeats in Maynooth compared to other institutions with which I am familiar, especially in the UK. Students generally take resits when, because they have failed one or more examinations the previous May, they have not accumulated sufficient credits to proceed to the next year of their course. Passing the resit allows them to retrieve lost credit, but their mark is generally capped at a bare pass (usually 40%). That means the student gets the credit they need for their degree but their average (which determines whether they get 1st, 2nd or 3rd class Honours) is affected. This is the case unless a student has extenuating circumstances affecting the earlier examination, such as bad health or family emergency, in which case they take the resit as a `sit’, i.e. for the first time with an uncapped mark.

Here in Maynooth, however, the mark obtained in a repeat examination is usually not capped. Indeed, some students – though not many – elect to take the repeat examination even if they passed earlier in the summer, in order to increase their average mark.

Some people don’t like the idea of uncapped repeats because they feel that it would lead to many students playing games, i.e. deliberately not taking exams in May with the intention of spreading some of their examination  load into August. There’s not much sign of students actually doing that here, to be honest, for the reason that the results from the repeat examination period are not confirmed until early September so that students that deploy this strategy do not know whether they are going to be able to start their course until just a couple of weeks before term. That could cause lots of problems securing accommodation, etc, so it doesn’t seem to me to be a good ploy.

I’d welcome comments for or against whether resits/repeats should be capped/uncapped and on what practice is adopted in your institution.

This entry was posted on August 1, 2023 at 1:19 pm and is filed under Education, History, Maynooth with tags 1st August, Autumn, Cross-quarter day, Lá Lúnasa, Lúnasa, Maynooth University, Repeat examinations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.