Short answer: plussage means that if your final exam percentage is higher than your progress test percentage, the final exam mark replaces the progress test mark. In practice it turns the progress test into a free attempt: you can only gain from it, not lose.
A real example
In 2025 I completely failed the PHSI191 progress test. Not a near miss, a failure. I then focused hard on the final and got 100. Because plussage applied, that 100 replaced the progress test mark, and the overall result came out at 100.
That is the whole mechanic in one story. A bad progress test is recoverable in a paper with plussage. That is not true everywhere.
The strategic bit: when two progress tests collide
Here is the part most first-years work out too late. Progress tests cluster. The PHSI191 progress test tends to land near a HUBS progress test, and you will not have enough time to prepare properly for both.
When that happens, the correct move is usually to prioritise the paper without plussage. If PHSI191 has plussage and HUBS does not, then a bad HUBS progress test mark is locked in, while a bad PHSI mark can still be rescued by a strong final.
Put bluntly: do not sink the whole ship trying to save every part of it. Protect the mark you cannot get back.
Important caveats
- Check your own course information every year. Which papers offer plussage, and on what terms, is set by each department and can change. Do not plan around a blog post, including this one. Confirm it in your paper's course outline.
- Plussage is not permission to skip. Sit the progress test properly. It is genuine feedback on where you actually are, and it can only help your mark.
- It only rescues the progress test. It does nothing for terms requirements, lab assessments or your final. Those still have to be earned.
The mindset
Plussage rewards students who understand the rules of their own assessment. Most people never read their course outline closely enough to notice which papers carry it, and then they spread themselves evenly across every test as though all marks are equally recoverable. They are not.
If you want to make that PHSI191 final count, you can practise PHSI191 questions on Cutline, free to start.
