Your project supervisor will be monitoring the effort you are putting in on your project. Any student who does not appear to be making satisfactory progress on their project will be required to discuss the matter with the Director of Studies.

Credit

As you know we operate a credit accumulation scheme whereby your performance in all years of your course count towards your final degree classification. Your marks this year contribute 60% towards that final classification. You are also reminded that to be awarded an honours degree you should normally have fewer that 37.5% of your final year marks below 30%.

Assessed Modules

This year all lectured modules given by the Physics Department, with the exception of PX390-Scientific Programming, are assessed by formal examination. The Physics Project is assessed on the basis of interim and final reports and a viva and the Communicating Science module along with PX390 is also 100% assessed.

Most of the courses given by outside departments are assessed by a combination of assessed components, e.g. essays, and examination: The language modules are usually 40% assessed and 60% examined and Fluid Dynamics is 100% examined.

Examinations

The organisation of the formal examinations set by the Physics Department is given below (you will be notified of any changes). There will be several paper formats; papers examining one module which will be of 2 hours duration for a 15 CAT module or 1.5 hours for a 7.5 CAT one, or a 3-hour paper with 2 sections each examining one 7.5 CAT module. You will note that the 1.5 hour exam per 7.5 CAT module is somewhat longer than in previous years.

For 15 CAT modules, the examination paper will have four questions and you should attempt three of these. For 7.5 CAT modules you should attempt two questions chosen from three.

Examinations are held at two points during the year - week 30 (i.e. immediately after the Easter vacation) and in weeks 33-36 (May/June). The proposal is that papers be as follows:

Week 30

• PX308X
  • A - PX308 Physics in Medicine
  • B - PX350 The Weather and the Environment

• PX3820 Quantum Physics of Atoms

• PX4400 Mathematical Methods for Physicists III

Weeks 33 to 36

• PX3660 Statistical Physics

• PX3700 Optoelectronics and Laser Physics

• PX384X
  • A - PX384 Electrodynamics
  • B - PX392 Plasma Electrodynamics

• PX3850 Condensed Matter Physics

• PX3870 Astrophysics

• PX3880 Magnetic Resonance

• PX3910 Nonlinearity, Chaos and Complexity

• PX3950 The Standard Model

• PX3960 Nuclear Physics

• PX397X
  • PX397 Galaxies
  • PX389 Cosmology

As part of the examination and quality assurance process the external examiner may wish to talk to some students (note: these are not oral examinations). You MUST be available during week 39 (last week of term) in case the examiner wishes to see you (so do not organise any holidays then).

The examination results will be available sometime on Wednesday of the last week of Term 3.

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