Exam FAQ

Universität Bonn

Dekanat der Philosophischen Fakultät

Prüfungsamt 

Am Hof 1

53113 Bonn

All first-semester students in the Bachelor’s or Master’s programme at the Faculty of Arts must register for the examination procedure at the Examination Office after first registering at the Student Registry. By completing the registration for the examination procedure, a file is created in the Examination Office and the student account is activated to sign up for module exams on the electronic study portal BASIS.

Without the registration for the examination procedure, it is therefore not possible to sign up for exams!

You can find more information on the registration procedure here.

The Examination Committee has defined that regular attendance in the sense of the examination regulations exists with maximum absences of up to 30%, including absences excused by a doctor's certificate. This means that students may be absent for 30% of the actual time of a course and they will still be able to successfully complete the course in terms of compulsory attendance. The maximum absence time must be calculated per semester and per course on the basis of the lecture weeks, the semester hours and any public holidays that may lie in the lecture period.

Example: The summer semester 2023 has 15 lecture weeks. For a two-hour course, attendance is compulsory for 30 hours, of which up to 9 hours may be missed. If the course is missed on a Monday in this semester, there are three public holidays in the lecture period, so that only 24 hours of attendance are required and the maximum absence is 7 hours.

You register for a module exam in due time via the electronic study portal BASIS. During the registration deadlines, which are announced each semester by the Examination Office, you select in BASIS in which of your modules you want to register for the module exam or partial module exam. Registration is only possible if you fulfil the prerequisites for the respective exam or partial exam. As a rule, these prerequisites are completed and already recorded study achievements as well as, if applicable, the recording of successful participation in modules with compulsory attendance.

Following the electronic registration for the exam forms term paper, internship report, presentation, project work and portfolio, BASIS creates a registration form which you have to have signed by your examiner in order to determine the topic and processing time. Please note that this form must be downloaded and printed out directly during registration, as this is only possible during the registration phase of assignments and course-related examinations. The registration form (“cover sheet”) is submitted to your examiner together with the exam performance by the deadline, at the latest at the end of the processing period.

The processing time for the aforementioned forms of exam runs from the time of registration and topic setting (cf. guidelines for term papers) and ranges from one to a maximum of twelve weeks (or two to a maximum of twelve weeks for term papers and project papers). Irrespective of this, however, the processing period ends in any case at the end of the respective semester of exam registration (31 March or 30 September). Accordingly, the available processing period can also be shorter than twelve weeks. The specific submission date must be noted on the registration form and is not at the discretion of the examiner.

No. It is imperative to register during the specific registration period (please note that different registration phases apply for different types of exams). The registration phase ends with a set deadline that precludes further registrations beyond that date. Belated registration requests cannot be considered, even if this leads to delays in your course of study. Students are obliged to inform themselves about the reporting deadlines and to observe them (see here for the deadlines).

For exams and oral exams, we recommend that you register within the first examination registration period, since in the event of failure, withdrawal or failure to pass, the second stage exam period remains available to re-sit the exam within the same semester. In the event of technical problems, please contact us immediately, and within the exam registration period via the contact form.

You can inspect your exams, the examiners' reports relating to them and the exam protocols for oral exams. The request must be submitted no later than three months after the announcement of the result. Please use the appropriate form (see download area of the Examination Office website). Inspection of files is still possible in a digital form. For recently completed work, please enquire at the institute first (here, too, the signed form must be used and sent to the Examination Office). You may be able to inspect them there on site. For older exams, please contact the Examination Office using the contact form.

Important: Copies and other (also digital) reproductions of the exam file are permitted. However, they serve exclusively to pursue the student’s own legal rights and are therefore only to be made accessible to the candidate or his/her legal counsel.

First of all, you have all the rights and obligations in the student relationship as students who are not caring for and raising a child. This means you can attend classes and take exams as normal. In order for a special arrangement to be granted, an application for parental leave must be expressly made and submitted in due time in accordance with § 27 paragraph 2 BMPO 2018. At the latest four weeks before the date from which parental leave is to commence, the examination office must be informed in writing of the period for which parental leave is to be taken, enclosing the necessary evidence. The examination board will check whether the legal requirements exist that would trigger an employee's entitlement to parental leave according to the Federal Parental Allowance and Parental Leave Act (Bundeselterngeld- und Elternzeitgesetz, BEEG). If this is the case, the exam topics provided are considered not to have been assigned; the application for parental leave thus triggers a withdrawal, for which no failed attempt is counted. The examination regulations stipulate that the examinee receives a new topic after parental leave has expired. In fact, however, the examinee is allowed to consult with the examiners himself or herself regarding the choice of a new topic for the written paper, as in the first attempt; he or she must re-register for the exam in the regularly scheduled way. Beyond that, however, the application for parental leave has no effect on the exams. In particular, deadlines are not interrupted by parental leave. There is also currently no basis for any other special regulations, such as the conversion of exam forms or the suspension of attendance requirements.

Due to  the care of minor children, a leave of absence can be applied for at the Student Administration Office, cf. the relevant information from the Student Administration Office. While as  a rule, no exams may be registered during a leave of absence, there is an exception if said leave is due to the care of minors,. § 15 paragraph 2 of the enrolment regulations of the University of Bonn. However, if this option is used and students register for exams during their leave of absence, normal rules apply with regard to deadlines, withdrawal and repetition  as well as the arrangement of the exam (form, time, etc.). Only if parental leave is explicitly applied for in due time in accordance with the previous paragraph, does the effect of a withdrawal without a failed attempt automatically apply to all registered exams.

In principle, only those aids are allowed in examinations that have been approved by the examiners. These aids will be announced in good time. Please note: The AI application ChatGPT is a prohibited aid if its use has not been expressly permitted by the examiners! Its use in the preparation of written work, in particular term papers and theses, is forbidden unless the specific locations of use are made clear.

If a candidate attempts to influence the result of the exam by using non-permitted aids, the exam in question will be graded as “insufficient”. The determination is made by the respective examiner or the supervisor, recorded in the files and forwarded to the examination board (§ 26 paragraph 1 of the Bachelor's and Master's Examination Regulations 2018, "Täuschung und Ordnungsverstoß").

Registration for the Bachelor’s thesis requires 108 credit points. Registration for the Master’s thesis requires 60 credit points. The processing period (three months for Bachelor’s theses and six months for Master’s theses) begins with the written registration at the Examination Office. There is no minimum processing time. Bachelor’s or Master’s theses that are not submitted to the Examination Office by the deadline will be failed.

Before registering your thesis, please be sure to carefully read the handout for the Bachelor’s thesis or the handout for the Master’s thesis.

In general, you must be registered during the exams in accordance with § 63 Para. 1, 2nd half-sentence HG; the exam is only completed when it has been determined whether it was successful or unsuccessful. If you have not re-registered, e.g. in order to save the social contribution, although you probably do not yet know your examination result at the respective end of the pre-semester, you are therefore taking a risk, especially as your Uni-ID will be switched off and you will no longer have access to BASIS and to your transcripts.

If you have not passed your last examination(s) and have therefore unfortunately not graduated, you must re-register in order to be able to attempt another examination. If you have already missed the deadline for re-registration at this point in time, you can only re-register later at the Registrar's Office in accordance with § 16 of the Enrolment Regulations if the missed deadline is excused in writing by an important reason and proof of this is provided. Before you are re-enrolled, you cannot re-register for the outstanding exam. In addition, it may happen that you can no longer be enrolled in your old examination regulations, but must continue your studies according to new examination regulations then in force, which may be followed by a time-consuming credit transfer procedure and possibly the loss of achievements already gained.

If, on the other hand, you have duly re-registered, you are entitled to a pro-rata refund of a partial amount as soon as you have passed your final exams. You can find more information here.

You must have completed all achievements from your Bachelor's degree (i.e. handed in written exams or successfully participated in written and oral exams) before you can start your Master’s degree programme at the Faculty of Arts. This means that open achievements from the Bachelor’s programme must have been completed by the end of the semester that lies before the first Master’s semester (for those who would like to start their MA programme in the summer semester, the achievements must be completed by 31 March; for those who would like to start in the winter semester, the achievements must be completed by 30 September). The assessment of the last Bachelor’s exame and thus the awarding of the degree can then take place in the first Master’s semester. In other words: As a student, you must have done everything that was required for the Bachelor’s before  April 1st or October1st, depending on whether you start the Master’s programme in the summer or winter semester.

Master’s students who cannot provide proof of the admission requirements within six months cannot re-register and thus risk losing their place on the programme.

As long as the access requirements have not been proven, you may participate in courses, but no exams may be taken. This is only possible once the admission requirements have been proven within the framework of the so-called Master’s registration, which should therefore not be missed under any circumstances.