Little is known about secular trends of achievement in medical undergraduate examinations.
Here we report the number of students attaining honours or commendation standard at the …

There has been considerable debate and some disquiet in the United Kingdom1 over the
issue of degree standards; a report published in 1996 by the Higher Education Quality …

Background Around one‐third of medical students in the UK take an intercalated honours
degree in addition to their basic undergraduate course. The honours year has been reported …

Many British universities award one or more honours grades to its most distinguished MB
graduates. This study of the medical graduates of the University of Aberdeen was …

Riding the wave: current and emerging trends in graduates from Australian university medical
schools Page 1 MJA • Volume 186 Number 6 • 19 March 2007 309 VIEWPOINT ‘The Medical …

Postgraduate exams are important milestones (or barriers) in specialist careers. However,
there are several peculiar features in the Royal Colleges' exams, and considerable …

Background: Success in undergraduate medical courses in the UK can be predicted by
school exit examination (A level) grades. There are no documented predictors of success in …

Over the last 4 years, the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILTHE)
has been attempting to redress the balance between research and teaching through the …

Background Inequity in assessment can lead to differential attainment. Degree
classifications, such as 'Honours', are an assessment outcome used to differentiate students …

It is interesting to see how some developments in assessment in the USA and UK seem to
have gone in opposite directions. The USA has a longstanding tradition of highquality …