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You could have worked successfully through college to attain the required grade qualifications at the A-levels to be able to progress to the university. Now, you might be finding the degree programme quite challenging. However, for most students, it might be hard to admit this until they receive the notification, email or letter asking them to prepare to resit an exam they failed. There are many factors that could be responsible for a resit. A student can land a resit due to one or more of the following reasons.
1. The challenge of having to learn on your own and take responsibilty for your academic progress. During the days of GCSE and A-levels, most students' progress were closely monitored and regulated.
2. Excessive distractions from university life (parties, pubs , extracurricular etc) , part time jobs and other non academic engagament that makes one studies to suffer .
3. Courses that are naturally tough to understand. During my graduate and postgraduate studies, even though I was studious and did not allow myself to be distracted , I found some courses by nature are hard. A subject like Advanced Quantum Mechanics is not something you would just gloss over even if you are brilliant. However , I ended up with A grades in these courses because I figured out the underlying principles. Resits can be as a result of finding a course hard to learn due to inadequate background knowledge on the subject matter.
4. Lack of time management. Lack of proper planning and time allocated to tasks could be another culprit responsible for resits. Some courses need more attention that some students are willing to give and some that students spend more time on actually need less time.
Not passing a year exam would naturally lead to failing the year or being asked to leave the university if this repeats itself. Most resits come up in August or early September. It has often be said that madness is doing the same thing the same way and expecting a different result.
These are the steps you need to take to avoid failing a resit. This could lead to being asked to leave the university.
1. Do not become agitated and tensed up. If you do , it would be hard for you to be strategic and composed.
2. You need to sincerely find out the reason why you failed in the first place –
(i) Inadequate subject knowledge: You might not have adequate subject knowledge or grasp the principles behind the course. In that situation you need to go through the specifications of the course or use the past paper as a guide. You might definitely need help with private tuition in this area. If the help you need as a degree student is in the area of Maths, Physics and Chemistry, then you can contact me. I have worked with students from the University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, University of Bristol, University of Salford and University of Aberystwyth
(ii) Organisation and planning: Plan and organise your study to be in line in what is needed to pass the exams. In some cases when I worked with university students, I found out they could have had an A grade by just focusing their study on some particular topics instead of thinly diving their attention over all the topics. I found out this by simply checking the past exam instructions and question patterns
(iii) Personal mitigating issues: Discuss personal issues such as finances, health, relationships and any other factor that is critically distracting you with your course instructor, student service centre or counselling officers in your university.
