Failing Prelims or Mods

It is impossible to go on to the second public examination until you have passed the first public examination (called Mods or Prelims).

If you fail your first public examination you will usually be given the opportunity to retake the examination before the beginning of the following academic year. In some colleges this is agreed in the college regulations as a right, though in other colleges there may be no right to retake and failure will lead to permanent expulsion.

If you fail your resits there may be the possibility of them retaking the entire year, although this is generally only allowed in exceptional circumstances.  You may also be allowed to resit the first year but in a different subject.  If this is not possible, you may wish to re-apply to the same college to do a course for which you are better suited. However, if you have failed your examinations, another college is unlikely to take you on unless you can convince them of overriding reasons why you could not perform at your first college.

When preparing for resits, you may want to consider other options if the worst does happen.  This can include studying at another university to do either the same or a different course. Many other Higher Education institutions are happy to offer places to students on a provisional basis (i.e. only if they fail their resit), and having a "back-up plan" can ease the stress. You may also want to consider how failure may affect accommodation plans for the next year.

Failing exams can be upsetting.  There are many people with whom you can discuss any concerns, including College welfare officers, your tutor and the Student Advice Service.  For a full list of useful contacts, please click here.

Best practice for colleges: Mods/Prelims failure

Colleges should offer as much support as possible to those who have failed their mods/prelims.  Failure is not an uncommon occurrence in subjects such as Engineering and in certain papers on the English and Modern Languages courses.  When your college finds out that you have failed a paper or have not met the requirements to pass into the second year, your Senior Tutor will write to you.  There is not a uniform automatic right to retake the exam(s) across colleges, but for the most part students are allowed to do so.  The next step is to get in touch with your tutors (if they haven’t already been in touch with you) to ask advice about passing the papers you have failed and plan your revision.

Good Senior Tutors will inform you of the other areas of support available to you.  In their letter they should give you contact details of someone in college to whom you can speak, whether this is a tutor in your subject, a pastoral tutor or tutor supporter.  As always, your common room Academic Affairs Officer will be available to talk, and if you need any more practical advice or just want someone to talk things through with, the OUSU Student Advice Service can help.

The most important thing to remember about prelim/mods failure is that it is not as significant as it may first appear.  Failure at this level does not bar you from achieving a first class degree, nor is it necessarily an indicator of your ability or suitability for your course. All exams are very stressful, make or break situations and this means that here are many opportunities for things to go wrong.  If you fail the first time around, try to learn from it, but more importantly try to move on.