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Assessment

Your performance on your chosen pre-sessional course will be assessed in a variety of different ways.

Successful completion of your course is defined as:

  • at least 90% attendance/engagement
  • completion of all assessments
  • an overall pre-sessional assessment score of
    • at least 40% for academic programmes requiring 6.5 IELTS
      (20, 12, and 6 week programmes)
    • at least 50% for academic programmes requiring 7.0 IELTS
      (6 week programme)

Assessment methods

The pre-sessional course will assess your four skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) and academic literacy, through a combination of integrated academic assessments.  

Your final pre-sessional score will be based on the following three summative assessments:

An extended academic style essay plus interview

The essay, which must follow a model provided by the course tutor, should be between 1,200-1,300 words, and contain a discursive element. You will be expected to answer questions in an interview with your tutor on the content of your essay.

Individual presentation

The presentation is 5-6 minutes long, and the topic of the presentation will be related to your onward programme of study. You will be expected to answer questions on the content of your presentation.

Integrated Skills Task

The Integrated Skills Task assesses the four skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing. Firstly, you will take notes on a listening and reading source. You will then use these notes to help you answer questions about the two sources in an 8-10 minute interview. Finally, you will complete a 350-400 word reflective writing task based on your experience of the assessment.