I am a second year English student, and last year I took the preliminary examinations for Part I of the English Tripos. At the time, other Cambridge friends would snigger or roll their eyes at the mention of prelims because ‘they don’t count’, and parents and grandparents don’t quite understand when you can’t tell them what grade you got at the end of the year.

But I do think they were useful, particularly for English (and I expect it’s the same for other prelim subjects), where the university exam style is so different from school exams. I struggled quite a bit with having no set syllabus or set texts to revise: it is literally up to you to decide which books to use, what topics to cover, and in the quite limited time for revision: exams are in week 0, and let’s face it you don’t spend the whole of Easter revising, what with chocolate to be eaten. 

When it came to the exams I remember feeling quite daunted, and there had been no mocks to prepare me for the three-hour long intensive essay slog. As a consequence, I felt that I underperformed, but when it came to my DoS meeting at the end of term (a good eight weeks after I took the papers) and I was faced with the piece of A4 commenting on the results of my labour, she told me not to be disheartened: that the point of prelims was to practise the exam style, rather than being thrown in the deep end at the end of first year.

I feel more prepared for my exams this year having done the Preliminary papers, and in terms of covering content, the prelims didn’t result in more content to cover in Part I exams, as two terms' worth of the work I did last year were assessed through coursework during this year.

Some people might argue that they were ready to take real exams at the end of first year, and would have preferred to do this, but at least for English I can see a practical reason why the faculty organises prelims: because in English you have to do a dissertation and coursework in Part I to replace some exams – it would be unfair to make students decide topics before they had even begun at Cambridge. The only solution to this would be to cover certain topics in first year and take exams on them for Part I, and then allow students to choose options for second year, along with a dissertation and coursework, as the start of Part II. However, Cambridge insists on taking us English students through the history of English Literature, from Medieval to present day, throughout our first two years. But course freedom is a debate for another day…

Preliminary exams obviously wouldn’t work for every subject, since medics, NatScis, lawyers, and other subjects need to get content out the way to focus on next year’s modules. But students studying these subjects seem to be tested quite routinely throughout the year, and so must get used to the exam mode. In fact, I would have been quite happy to take exams in my first year, had I felt that I had had enough preparation for them. I do think it would be useful to set mocks – some colleges might set them for English, but mine doesn’t, even though there are college based mocks for almost every other subject after Christmas of first year, and some in Easter too. Having this earlier exposure to exams would make taking my first ever ‘exam’ at Cambridge in the last term of the year less daunting.

On another note, Prelims have their pros and cons in terms of one’s enjoyment of Easter term. On the one hand, getting exams over and done with in week 0, and spending the majority of the term far more relaxed than your stressed friends, is enjoyable. You are left with more free time and feel less guilty about taking part in drama, sport and other activities. On the other hand however, when all your friends begin to finish their exams, are sprayed with champagne, getting smashed every night, or doing absolutely nothing, the three essays and four supervisions you have left start to seem a huge drag.

Yes, they might be a bit of an anti-climax to your first year at university – two exams in the whole year, without even a definitive mark, but taking prelims is better than underperforming in a year that actually counts. It also meant that I could put ‘expected grade II.i’ on my CV for any internship applications. And after all, doesn’t everyone say that in Cambridge only third year counts anyway?