EXAMINATIONS
Session 2006-2007

Specimen examinations
Exam Times and Venues

Your knowledge of the material studied in each semester will be tested in two degree examinations. Each will consist of one paper, two hours in length.

For material covered in Semester One the Degree Examination will be held in December, during the assessment period in weeks 12 and 13.

For material covered in Semester Two the Degree Examination will be held during the Final Assessment period in April-May.

The first semester will deal with 'Writing and Revolution, 1760 -1830' and the second with 'Revolution in Writing, 1890-1939'.

In each Degree Examination paper there will be two sections, and candidates will answer ONE question from EACH section.

The first section of each exam will ask you to address issues and ideas, critical and/or historical, raised by that semester’s course, while rooting your argument in evidence from specific texts from the relevant period. The exercise you are being asked to perform here is the same as that required by essays 2 and 4, and the rubric will be very similar (see Coursework and Author Lists for Rubrics); allowing, of course, for the time constraints imposed by a sit-down exam.

The second section of each exam will relate to specific authors and topics, and candidates will be expected to show detailed knowledge both of the texts they choose to write about and of different potential critical readings of those texts. The exercise you are being asked to perform here is the same as that required by essays 1 and 3, allowing once again for the time constraints imposed by a sit-down exam.

It is important to adhere carefully to the rubric for degree exam papers.

The Degree Examinations taken together will count as 50% of the year's final aggregate mark. However, an overall mark of 40% must be achieved in the degree exams in order to pass the course.

Degree Examinations not sat (without good reason and the production of a medical certificate) will be graded at zero.

Relation of essays to exams

In the exam, you may not repeat ‘material’ from your term essays; but what counts as ‘material’ requires definition. You may choose to discuss authors that you have already discussed in your term essays. You may also choose to address issues or ideas related to those explored in your term essays. What you may NOT do is address the same issues or ideas by discussing the authors that you used to address those issues and ideas in the original essay. It is this, using the same author to make the same point, that counts as mere repetition of material from an essay and is disallowed.

However, students should remember that, however similar the rubric, the questions asked in the exams will be substantially different from those listed for the essays; and that exam answers will be heavily penalised for irrelevance to the question asked. In your revision for exams, you should therefore seek to consolidate your knowledge of the texts on the course and the critical and theoretical issues they raise. MERELY REPRODUCING MATERIAL FROM YOUR ESSAY, COMPOSED IN ANSWER TO A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT QUESTION, WILL NOT EARN GOOD MARKS IN THE EXAM.

Exam Times

The date, place and time of each degree examination will be published during the course of the semester. You should take very careful note of this. Getting the date, place or time wrong will not be accepted as grounds for missing an exam.

Details of the exam timetables will first appear on Registry's web site:
http://www.registry.ed.ac.uk/Examinations/

The Degree Examination in December will take place as follows:

on Thursday 7th December 2006 from 9.30 to 11.30 am

in St. Leonard's Land Games Hall (front), Holyrood Road

The Degree Examination in April/May will take place as follows:

on Tuesday 24th April 2007 from 2.30 to 4.30 pm

in Adam House (second floor), Chambers Street

If needed, Resit Examinations will take place at times and venues to be announced.

2006-2007 - Resit Diet: mid August

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Sample Examination Papers

N.B. The December degree examination will be the equivalent of past years’ “Paper One” and the May degree examination will be equivalent to “Paper Two” from previous years.

Specimen degree exam: Paper One.

Specimen degree exam: Paper Two.

Previous American Literature 2 exam papers (pre-2004-05) can also be found at
Edinburgh University exam papers online: http://www.exampapers.lib.ed.ac.uk/English_Literature.shtml

Question papers for May 2005 can be found via: http://www.exampapers.lib.ed.ac.uk/English%20Literature0405.shtml

[Examinations set by the English Literature department are listed there alphabetically.]

The home page for Exam Papers online is at http://www.lib.ed.ac.uk/resources/collections/exams.shtml

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