Music Technology - 30 Credit Certificate - A Guide To BTEC Grading

This article has been adapted from Donna Hollick's Coulsdon College guide to BTEC Grading for BTEC RQF Certificate in Travel & Tourism, Sept 2020

You are studying the BTEC Level 3 RQF Certificate in Music Technology. Your qualification size is 180 Guided Learning Hours and is equivalent in size to 0.5 of an A Level.  You will be studying 2 units, one internally-marked coursework and the other is an externally-marked exam. 

The following grades can be awarded for the certificate:

• Pass 
• Merit 
• Distinction
• Distinction*

Unit 6 – DAW Production 

You will be assessed for this unit by an external exam.

The marks below show how many points you will get for each grade. 

 

Unit 2 – Studio Recording Techniques 

This unit is assessed by coursework. The table below shows the number of points available for this unit.  For unit 2, points are allocated depending on the grade awarded. To get each grade – all criteria within the grade must be achieved.

For example 

Unit 2 consists of 

• Pass grades - P1, P2, P3, P4, P5
• Merit grades – M1, M2, M3 and M4, M5
• Distinction grades – D1, D2, D3

IMPORTANT - HOW YOUR GRADE IS CALCULATED

You must achieve all the criteria above to get a Distinction,

all the Pass and Merits to get a Merit,

and all the Passes to get a Pass.

If you get all the Pass grades and all of the Distinctions, but only 2 of the Merits – your overall unit grade will be a Pass. 

 The grades awarded for Unit 2 can be seen below:

 

To calculate your overall grade, the points from Unit 6 are added to the points from Unit 2 to give you your overall grade

The points awarded from Unit 6 and Unit 2 will be added together to calculate the final grade which you can see in the table above.

For Example

Mohammed achieved a Pass for Unit 6 and got 12 points. He prefers coursework though and got a Distinction for Unit 2 which is 16 points. Mohammed has 28 points altogether so Mohammed was awarded a Merit for his BTEC Certificate in Music Technology. 

Practice time!

1. Agatha studied a BTEC Certificate in Music Technology. She gets a Near Pass in her exam for Unit 6 and a Merit for Unit 2 coursework – what is her grade overall?

2. Rupert also studied on the same course – he got a Distinction in Unit 6 and a Merit in Unit 2 – what was his overall grade?

3. Mabel studied on the same course. She did very well and got Distinctions on both units – what was her grade overall?

4. Cliff struggled on the course and was awarded a Near Pass on the Unit 6 exam and got a Pass in the Unit 2 coursework – what grade did he achieved overall?

5. Priya studied with the group and got a Merit for the Unit 6 exam and a Pass for the Unit 2 coursework – what grade did Priya gain overall?

Stretch and Challenge

Please give your target grade that you would like to achieve at the end of the year and give 3 strategies you will use to achieve this!

Target Grade – 

Strategies:

1)

2)

3)