For undergraduate students, if you fail a unit, the university offers opportunities to resit your assessment/s so you can obtain a pass. This will be offered if the reassessment can take place before the end of the current academic year. Your grade for this will usually be capped at 40%, which is the pass mark. A resit will be offered each time you take an entire unit and do not pass.

For postgraduate students, you will also have an opportunity to resit a failed unit, however, this will need to take place during the Resit period. The resit period is the time which resit tasks should be undertaken, presented and assessed. The assessment of all resit tasks, including receiving your marks, must be completed by the end of the resit period. The maximum mark you will receive on a resit is 40%, the pass mark.

For undergraduate students, a retake gives you an opportunity to retake a unit during the following academic year – you need to repeat the whole unit in its entirety, including those which you have passed. You will be offered a retake if the unit has been failed at the resit stage. You will only be offered one retake per unit, and if you do not pass this attempt you will, unfortunately, receive a fail mark. For retakes, your grade will not be capped at 40%.

For postgraduate students, a retake will not usually be available.

If you have been offered the opportunity for a resit, you will want the best chances of passing this time around. If you feel that you need help with your resit, you can book an appointment with the Learning Development Tutor through Gateway. To contact gateway you can email them at:

• Canterbury: gatewaycanterbury@uca.ac.uk
• Epsom: gatewayepsom@uca.ac.uk
• Farnham: gatewayfarnham@uca.ac.uk

Here are some more tips for acing your resit:

• Revise in the way that works best for you. Whether this is a structured revision plan, a less structured one, or just making sure you set some time aside every day to focus completely on revision, find a way that works for you. We are aware that strict structure isn’t something that works for everyone and there is no one size fits all approach, so figure out what best works for you and work with that.
• Rest and recharge. You cannot run at 100% if you haven’t allowed yourself appropriate time to rest – so break your time down so you allow yourself capacity for both hard work and relaxation.
• Try to maintain healthy eating and sleeping patterns. See our section on health and wellbeing for some top tips on this.
• Ask for help. If you are struggling, do not suffer in silence. Somebody will be able to help you, whether that is the learning development team, your tutor or someone else. You can always come to the Students' Union for support or to be signposted to the correct person.