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Original post by ben-smith
Firmed and insured. Feels a bit strange...


Who did you insure?
Original post by ben-smith
Firmed and insured. Feels a bit strange...


About 10 minutes after I did this I felt absolute sure I had firmed the worng place....of course UCAS was down for service by then :rolleyes:
Original post by shamika
Who did you insure?


UCL

Original post by TheMagicMan
About 10 minutes after I did this I felt absolute sure I had firmed the worng place....of course UCAS was down for service by then :rolleyes:


why?
Reply 5043
Original post by anyone_can_fly
The Scottish system's a bit better - last year the pass rate for maths was 66% and 22% got an A. We have an end-of-year holistic exam rather than modules. I'd be interested to see how you A-levellers think the papers compare.


I remember sitting that exam :smile: That paper was damn tough. The last question was horrible. I still got 87% though :smile: (although I still wonder whether that was a marking error, I was worried I hadn't even got 70+).

Original post by In One Ear
Hey, had a scan through the paper. I'd say it started off rather easy (perhaps a bit easier than our a-levels) but the difficulty did look to steadily increase to a point where i'd say it definitely was harder than our a-levels- but the style seems radically different (i.e. there was pretty much no trig identity work which is a big theme in AQA's core maths, though perhaps i missed it, or maybe it just didn't come up in this specific paper but is still on the course?).

Really this looks like a bit of a blend of our core maths and further maths syllabuses (for instance AQA does not have things like second order differentials/sums of cubes/matrices/maclaurins expansion etc in the core a-level) and i suspect therein lies the real difficulty. At a glance, it looks like you probably have a lot more to know for the examination (as to be expected, as its longer to make up for the fact that its not modular throughout the year) which makes it much harder to "train", so to speak, for the examination.


I think the fact that one is assessed on a single exam is largely what contributes to the difficulty. However, AH maths is a meaty course and it covers more than we can get asked on on one exam paper. You noticed this with the lack of trig identity work; the other most obvious example was the ommision of any questions on graphs of functions (ie. asymptotes and so on) - they tend to fetch quite a lot of marks, and we focused on them quite a lot in class. It does make it challenging to prepare for, but this is probably true of all Scottish qualifications relative to A-levels. The downside to this system is that there is often a fair bit which simply won't be examined; I imagine that the module system does a good job of ensuring that everything you cover in the A-level course will be tested.

I wouldn't be surprised if it looks like a blend of A-level Maths and Further Maths - there isn't a further maths equivalent in the Scottish system and 99% of Advanced Higher maths is pure maths anyway.


Original post by In One Ear
With our system, each core module has a distinct focus (albeit perhaps C4 for AQA- thats rather bitty for lack of a better word) which means you can really just drill yourself endlessly on the small variety of questions that show up repeatedly. Also, this gives people in our system the opportunity to retake endlessly until they get a decent grade, which is what many end up doing. A friend of mine will have sat every core maths module as many times as is possible if you introduce them at a rate of 1 per exam season (i.e core 1 four times, core 2 three times, core 3 twice, and core 4 once). He ends up getting Bs endlessly (except in the most recent C3 exam, where he got a D) though i wouldn't be suprised if he manages to pull out an A in the end (and yes he does actually work hard) through dogged persistance.

Ultimately the fact that only 22% in your system get an A suggests the exams must be harder (out of interest what sort of rawscore typically correlates to an A-grade?) though statistical examination of our boards exam info has shown that many people carry through very strong UMS marks from the AS course from cores 1 and 2 which are, relatively speaking, moderately easier than cores 3 and 4. I read somewhere in a report that actually less than 1 in 5 (<20%) papers recieve in A-grade in the A2 year, but very strong all round performances from the AS year pull this up to give a rather stupidly high overall A-grade rate of around 35% i believe.


In Scottish Highers and Advanced Highers, 70%, +/- 1 or 2 marks is usually an A. For A-levels, isn't it 80% one needs? - that could be quite important in balancing the difficulty of the two qualifications.

The 22% statistic is deceptive; in Scotland the majority of pupils will have unconditionals while they're in their last year of school, so there's often little incentive to perform for the S6 exams. There were about 12 of us in my maths class last year, and I was one of the only few who put any effort into the course. I strongly suspect that if an English type/conditional based system were adopted, the A-pass rate for Advanced Highers would increase substantially.
Original post by ben-smith
UCL



why?


I hadn't actually done it worng....it was just one of those moments when you can't quite remember what you've done
Right, how much does living in London cost? I've read so many varying amounts. I'll have equivalent of max London loan (but part of that is maintenance grant) and the 1k bursary).

By the way, my household income is like 25.5k this means I lose out on 2500 bursary for 500 pounds of pre-tax wages. Do UCL provide any concessions for this?
Original post by hassi94
Right, how much does living in London cost? I've read so many varying amounts. I'll have equivalent of max London loan (but part of that is maintenance grant) and the 1k bursary).

By the way, my household income is like 25.5k this means I lose out on 2500 bursary for 500 pounds of pre-tax wages. Do UCL provide any concessions for this?


Make your Cambridge offer then it won't matter. The Cambridge bursary is on a sliding scale.
Original post by tiny hobbit
Make your Cambridge offer then it won't matter. The Cambridge bursary is on a sliding scale.


If it were only that easy. Obviously I'm gonna try make my Cambridge offer - but I need to be careful about my insurance as it's very possible I'll end up there.
Original post by hassi94
Right, how much does living in London cost? I've read so many varying amounts. I'll have equivalent of max London loan (but part of that is maintenance grant) and the 1k bursary).

By the way, my household income is like 25.5k this means I lose out on 2500 bursary for 500 pounds of pre-tax wages. Do UCL provide any concessions for this?


Although I live at home, I find that my weekly spending would be about £60-70. This would include going out, buying groceries and getting food. Accommodation will always take a massive chunk of your loan, but it's really all about budgeting.

If you want to know anything in particular, PM away :smile:

Original post by tiny hobbit
Make your Cambridge offer then it won't matter. The Cambridge bursary is on a sliding scale.


Sadly, planning for the worst is a good idea (I didn't fully plan for my insurance and when I missed my Cambridge offer it was quite chaotic for me :tongue: )
Original post by tiny hobbit
Make your Cambridge offer then it won't matter. The Cambridge bursary is on a sliding scale.


They have STEP which, in theory, means that they have 50% chance of not getting in.
Original post by Reminisce
They have STEP which, in theory, means that they have 50% chance of not getting in.


Your sketches are amazing! (I am very jealous. I cannot draw. At all)
Original post by Reminisce
They have STEP


I do know that - it's what I meant by "make your Cambridge offer". Without STEP, the Cambridge and UCL offers are the same, I believe, both A*AA.
Original post by Reminisce
They have STEP which, in theory, means that they have 50% chance of not getting in.


Screw you, Mr I'll-Get-In... :wink:

On the plus side, Cambridge using STEP means that if they get a candidate they're not 100% sure about, they can err on the side of "just give them an offer" (unlike Oxford) :smile:
I'm just gonna throw this out there: I have an offer from both Warwick and Imperial, and I'm really struggling to pick one for my firm.

Both want A*A*A and step (although Imperial wants step 2 instead of step 1)

Which one should I pick?! They both have their pros and cons and I really don't know which one to pick!

Thanks (:
Original post by lolcatmuch
I'm just gonna throw this out there: I have an offer from both Warwick and Imperial, and I'm really struggling to pick one for my firm.

Both want A*A*A and step (although Imperial wants step 2 instead of step 1)

Which one should I pick?! They both have their pros and cons and I really don't know which one to pick!

Thanks (:


You could use location as a deciding factor. Would you prefer everything on campus, but quite secluded, or living in the city, especially somewhere like London?
Original post by lolcatmuch
I'm just gonna throw this out there: I have an offer from both Warwick and Imperial, and I'm really struggling to pick one for my firm.

Both want A*A*A and step (although Imperial wants step 2 instead of step 1)

Which one should I pick?! They both have their pros and cons and I really don't know which one to pick!

Thanks (:


Assuming by "Step 2" you mean "a certain grade in STEP II" and not "a 2 in STEP", it's worth considering that STEP II is a lot harder than STEP I, and Warwick tends to place very highly in rankings. Often above Imperial, I think.

It also has a better boy/girl ratio than Imperial :colondollar:
Does anybody have/know where I can get the January 2012 edexcel markschemes for D1 and C3?
Thanks :smile:
Original post by lolcatmuch
I'm just gonna throw this out there: I have an offer from both Warwick and Imperial, and I'm really struggling to pick one for my firm.

Both want A*A*A and step (although Imperial wants step 2 instead of step 1)

Which one should I pick?! They both have their pros and cons and I really don't know which one to pick!

Thanks (:


Have you looked at the modules and course structure for each? Imperial is generally a more applied course, partly because they're a very strong Engineering university. Also do you prefer city living or campus? Green spaces or urban? Warwick offers more opportunities for doing courses outside Maths so if you're interested in taking modules in Business, Languages etc then that might be important to you.
Reply 5058
Firmed Nottingham, Insured Leeds!
Original post by KittyKattyKaity
Have you looked at the modules and course structure for each? Imperial is generally a more applied course, partly because they're a very strong Engineering university. Also do you prefer city living or campus? Green spaces or urban? Warwick offers more opportunities for doing courses outside Maths so if you're interested in taking modules in Business, Languages etc then that might be important to you.


It is? In my second year (yes I know the course has changed now) I took every pure option, and in my third and fourth years was very predominately pure, split about equally between Algebra/number theory and Analysis (in the courses I took to exam, I went along to some of the applied lectures).

I'm guessing that Imperial only looks more applied because as I understand it, Warwick's applied courses are shared with the physicists.

They're both good universities though so I honestly think the decision should be based on the type of campus you'd prefer...

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