What country are you studying in? If you are worried your ex-sup is giving a negative reference, here in the UK it is not allowed for them to do so as it is potentially libellous.

Just wanted to give an update: I found out that actually I have been awarded a distinction! The academic in question - as it turns out - is having some tough times professionally so I guess that explains his conduct. All that worrying for nothing!

Thank you. From what I heard, he didn't like my project because I didn't use very novel techniques, but if I'm honest what I was investigating neither warranted it, nor would it have made sense to do so as it was supposed to be something that could be carried out rapdily to get lots of data. In the previous rotation, nothing I had done was particularly challenging, just time-consuming. It isn't part of the marking criteria and wasn't an issue last time. I accept that he's correct, it just was never suggested that this was the main objective.

As for the presentation, I'm a little clueless as two of the other academics who were present gave me very high marks, so I'm not sure why he thought it was terrible.

Hi all. Sorry for this post, but I need to vent, I’ve had a horrible couple of days. I’m doing a Masters as part of a 1+3 PhD. The masters year is based at a different university. I’ve had a horrible experience there over this last year, but things got worse yesterday. I had a viva for the second lab rotation. Whilst the viva itself was ok-ish, when I arrived one of the two examiners had just got there. He and the other examiner requested a couple of minutes whilst they had a quick discussion, so I told them I would wait outside the office. Without shutting the door and with me in plain sight, he loudly began to tear in to my work and proclaim that he had given me a terrible mark for my presentation. I was completely taken aback and humiliated, especially as I was quite pleased with my work this time around. I then had to endure the viva, and I’m not sure how I didn’t break down. I’m now terrified that I’ve failed and won’t be able to progress. But more than anything I’m very cross about his conduct.

There may be other profs working in a related field who (along with your potential sup) have published papers of note recently, as part of a wider research group. Might be worth doing a literature search to see if that's the case. It's something worth looking into before going further with your application,