It really depends how poor and how good. I would expect your Masters mark to be key (but don't know the disciplinary area) tho of course this depends upon competition.

Aside from imploring you not to twist my words. I didn't say being a concert violinist precluded innate talent, I was arguing for a combination of this and tuition... otherwise we might as well shut the Royal Northern College of Music right away.

Incidentally Eagleton himself doesn't challenges Amis' salary; he quite clearly states his disbelief that Manchester can AFFORD to hire Amis.
Your argument is very unclear.
The RAE emphasis upon quantity rather than quality is undoubtedly problematic and has led to many injustices, but this and Manchester's financial position is something quite different from whether there should be a PROFESSOR Amis.
I think that is all I can be bothered to add.

The articles you cite entail an argument quite different from your origin argument regarding whether Amis should be a professor; you initially indicated consternation not at his salary, but at his title; would you now like to restate exactly what you were arguing?

Again, a highly over-romanticized view of the Arts as entailing some sort of innate talent. Would a violinist be good 'despite' the tuition that has enabled him/her to be a concert performer?

What sort of things does he do?
I know in the past that i've been oversensitive about my supervisor's comments (I'm not saying this is nec. true in your case) but it might help to chat with someone 'objective' about this...

Incidentally, for anyone who isn't aware of the well-publicized rift between Eagleton and Amis, it often descends into polemic, therefore it's difficult to take what the former says of the latter's salary as an indicator of any objectivity.

I don't care much for Amis' comments....
However I am pretty insulted at the implication that creative writing is somehow inauthentic academically.
Creative writing courses producing great novelists. I think you'd be surprised...
For instance, Alumni of UEA's course include Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro and Tracy Chevalier...
If you're going to direct your wrath at people over-paid than Amis isn't your most obvious target. In any case my main problem with this topic comes down to the original poster's lack of research and frankly, over-blown comments. Given he/she is implying he/she is after postdoc posts this is somewhat ironic

Oh and I live in a different city (2 hours journey time) from where I study full time.
I'm really not sure where he lives makes much difference if he fulfills his job spec!

Orian,
Please desist from posting things that are based upon sheer speculation.
First, if you see Amis' route as the easy one, go and publish that number of works yourself.
Second, all the reports suggest he is paid in the region of 80k/year - not half a million - and whether he is, or isn't, worth that amount of money is frankly none of your business. We live in a market economy, the fact that someone was prepared to pay him that much suggests that he is in fact worth that much money.

I think you're all right, and this kind of info I suspect would be fairly accessible when you come to need it.
I don't think it's helpful to have firm expectations of years before X anyway, as it's highly variable between and within disciplines.

So what?! Is my response....
He's a highly respected writer, no doubt he has spoken at literary festivals and the like.... moreover HE'S A PROFESSOR OF CREATIVE WRITING. I'm finding it difficult to comprehend how he could be MORE suited to such a position....
Discuss.

It's not that heavily research weighted, it's exactly the same as the other taught masters at the institute. 3 units taught + 1.5 research.
xxx

I'm in UCL's archaeology department.
That course is highly over-subscribed, especially as it didn't run this year as they were rewriting the syllabus, etc...
So far as bolstering your science is concerned, having had a friend who did this course in its previous form a couple of years ago, I very much doubt it would be any use. There is no such thing as a 'none digging' archaeology masters at the PhD. You would have HAD to do archaeological theory, etc...
So if you wrote what you have on here on your application I'm not especially surprised. Graduate medicine entry is HIGHLY competitive. I think you ought to consider whether that's what you really want - your application for an archaeology Masters suggests you're not really sure what you want, a 2.2 won't get you onto (much less competitive) programmes.
I hate to be negative, but have a good think before you set your heart on this one.

I wonder if you could put all your questions in a single post rather than posting the eight topics you have?
You cannot get a first on a Masters.
As the previous posters have intimated, you can get a pass (50+) and a distinction (70+) everywhere (although there are various 'little' rules depending on where you are, i.e. at my place you need over 70 in your dissertation irrespective of whether your overall average requires it to be over 70. Lots of places (though not all) give merits to marks over 60.
You basically need to work hard, though sometimes an over-70 mark won't be sufficient to guarantee you passage onto a PhD; in this case it's best to try to get the highest mark possible rather than aiming for a 70 or whatnot.