== totally wrong ==  

 I have deleted totally the following and I will explain why here.  

 [i]In the British-patterned universities, the Ph.D. program is much shorter because the coursework component is assigned to the masters' and bachelors' degrees, and the Ph.D. course is concerned purely with research for a thesis. The target time is nominally three years, but some students finish earlier, and many take a few years longer. The actual time depends strongly on the discipline being studied.[/i] 

 [b]This is rubbish for the reasons already discussed - while the funding councils are moving towards a model where they want applications to apply for Masters' funding and Ph.D. funding at the same time, there is no "assignment" of coursework to the masters' - it's not actually a requirement to do a masters' before a Ph.D.[/b] 

 [i]British-style bachelors' degrees do not usually require a broad liberal arts and sciences general education component and students are therefore free to concentrate solely on their chosen discipline. The bachelors' degree, if conferred with a high level of 'honours' (i.e. excellent grades), can allow admission to a Ph.D. program without having to first write a masters' thesis. This route is only possible if the university offers an 'honours year' in the field of study, though this is becoming increasingly common due to the greater funding that universities receive for enrolling doctoral students.[/i] 

 This is complete rubbish from start to finish. I have never heard of a british university having a "honours year" - virtually every degree awarded now in the UK has honours attached to it. In theory you can just walk after completing all of your modules and just get (for example) a BA but in practice everyone does their final assignment/project/disseration and gets their honours. The "honours" bit is no indication of excellent grades - you can get a 2:2 and still graduate with a BA(Hons)!