Information about Choosing Your Modules in the School of English and Drama

Academic Levels Explained

All modules taken by undergraduate students at Queen Mary are allocated a ‘Level’:

• Modules that you take in your first year are at Level 4.
• Modules that you take in your second year are at Level 5.
• Modules that you take in your final year are at Level 6.

Levels are used to design modules and forms of assessment. They relate to three main areas of the learning process: context (the framework within which responsibility for learning is managed, the intellectual parameters of study); cognition (knowledge and understanding, and the skills required to apply them); transferable skills (which include communication and presentation, and group skills). 

Levels are formulated on the assumption that as you acquire more competence, you will be able to work more independently, to perform evaluative and comparative tasks more effectively, to acquire more specialised kinds of knowledge, and to apply your skills to ends that involve a higher degree of intellectual challenge and sophistication.