Illness and Personal Problems
With the short, work-intensive terms at Cambridge, illness or personal problems, such as bereavement, can cause disruption to your degree work. If you are affected by illness or personal problems, be it only for a week or for a much longer period, let your DoS or personal tutor know if you feel it could have affected your work in any way. If you have to miss a supervision, tell your supervisor and try and arrange it for another time. They should be understanding and could give you some help in catching up if you need it. Try not to panic if you have missed quite a bit of work; you can always ask other students or your supervisors for help on work you've missed and there's always the vacations to do a bit of catching up in if you have to.
For more serious problems that you feel could really affect your performance in the exams, there are steps that can be taken to help you. It is important that you tell your tutor as soon as possible so that they can start to make the arrangements that you need.
You might feel that you need to take some time out from your course in which case you will want to apply to degrade. For more information see Degrading.
If you want to carry on to take the exams at the end of the year but still feel that your illness or personal problems could affect your exam performance and possibly put you at risk of failure, speak to your tutor.
If you are ill or have personal problems during exam term, it is important to let your tutor know and see a doctor, a college nurse or the University Counselling Service (whoever would be most appropriate). Not only is this advisable so that you can receive appropriate medical care, but if you need to appeal against your exam results on the grounds of ill health, you will need to provide medical evidence.
Your tutor can apply for an 'allowance' for you from the University's Applications Committee. They can grant different 'allowances', such as degrading, allowing you the exam or declaring you to deserve honours that can help if you have had problems in the preparation for your exams. It should be noted that allowances are not usually granted more than once during your degree. All applications have to be supported by your tutor and an application has to request a course of action. You might need to provide supporting evidence such as medical records, evidence from the University Counselling Service or supervision reports. More information on these allowances, what is usually awarded in what circumstances and the process that is followed is available from the University.
Examination Warnings
Tutors can submit an examination warning on your behalf, which won't mean you'll be awarded extra marks but does mean that examiners can declare you to have 'deserved honours' if your class doesn't reflect the quality of your work. Tutors may inform the Secretary of the Applications Committee that you have had your preparation for an exam hindered and/or will take the exam under an exceptional hindrance, and so there is a potential risk of failure/under-performance. The submission of an exam warning indicates that a Tutor believes there is a strong case for an allowance to be made to you if necessary.
The Chairman of Examiners will be supplied with a list of candidates for whom exam warnings have been submitted, but they will not be told why they have been submitted. The list will not be considered until marking has been completed (for reasons of anonymous marking) and the Examiners have drawn up a provisional class list in accordance with the normal marking and classing conventions. The provisional class list is drawn up before the candidate numbers are decoded into students' names. Now the Examiners act on the Exam warnings.
If you have attended all your exams and have been classed (i.e. haven't failed) then the Chairman of the Examiners will not tell the Examiners about the warning and no action will be taken. However, it is up to the college to then further act on the warning (usually via an application for Declared to have Deserved Honours) if they feel you have done demonstrably worse than you should. This is the procedure for the majority of exam warnings the Chairman of Examiners receive.
If you have attended all of your exams and failed outright or done sufficiently well to warrant an allowance towards the Ordinary BA, the Chairman of Examiners will leave your name off the class list and inform the Deputy Registry. The college will then be able to appeal to the Applications Committee for you to be allowed the examination (equivalent to Unclassified Honours).
If you have been absent for part of the examination, then the Applications Committee will have already decided whether or not the application has been successful before this information reaches the Chairman of Examiners. Therefore one of two things will happen:
If you have been classed in the provisional class-list the Chairman of Examiners will decide, on the basis of the work examined, whether your class is a fair reflection of your true ability. If it is then the Chairman of Examiners will leave you classed, however if he/she feels your work doesn't reflect your true ability based on the quality of your other work, they will remove you from the class-list and award you DDH.
If you have not been classed in the provisional class-list but nevertheless are judged to have performed with credit in a substantial part of the examination, the Chairman of the Examiners will award you DDH. If you have not been judged to have performed with credit, then the college will be invited to apply to allow you the examination.
The names of those who the examiners decide to give Declared to Have Deserved Honours (DDH) to will be published in the class list under the heading 'Declared to Have Deserved Honours'.
Examination warnings can stop you failing and can result in you appearing in the class list whereas you wouldn't if your poor performance was left unexplained. However, it cannot award you a certain class where the examiner has seen no work of that quality.
By being granted Declared to Have Deserved Honours (DDH), you can explain an unusually poor performance in your Tripos exams. It also allows you to proceed to the next year and/or receive a BA Honours Degree (rather than an Ordinary BA). DDH is awarded where the examiners have seen the quality of the candidate's work and therefore know it to be of a good quality. Therefore it's better than being allowed an examination because the Allowances Committee will not see/judge work, and therefore DDH is a sign of a good quality work.
Illness or personal problems on the day of an exam
Every college has a different procedure for dealing with students who are ill or have a personal problem on the day of the exam or are ill during the exam. Ask your college Welfare Officer or Academic Affairs Officer to find out for you what this procedure is, or contact CUSU who can ask on your behalf. If you are ill during an exam, you must alert an invigilator, and not leave the exam hall without informing an invigilator that you are ill. If you are ill or have a personal problem on the day of the exam and can prove that you have not seen the exam paper or had contact with someone who has sat the exam, then your college may arrange for you to re-sit the paper. If you are absent for the whole of an examination paper or leave an examination unusually early or arrive unusually late (and are allowed to continue with the examination), then the first marker of your script will be notified.
CUSU provides confidential, free, non-judgemental support and information to individual students. Contact the CUSU Education Officer, Welfare Officer or Women's Officer by email, phone or by dropping into the office if you would like support or information on any topic.