Cambridge Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES) Students and Applicants

Original post by kholland

@Steliata Maybe they all got the wrong answers. :sly:

@Jun-Ling Whoop! Well done on those exams! I honestly thought I'd be getting near 100 UMS for Geography but after the exams I don't think that's going to happen... Timing for the exam was so awful because there was just so much I wanted to write but my hand just couldn't keep up. I'm hopeful though so we'll see in August! I'm so ready to crack on with my extra reading, I'm in the middle of Nien Cheng's autobiography about the hardships she suffered through the Cultural Revolution, 'Life and Death in Shanghai,' and I'm just getting up to the part where the Red Guards ransacked her home... It's all a bit intense so I can't leave it any longer.

Haha I'm sure you still did well enough to impress Cambridge though! I bet A Level geography is a nightmare.

Thanks, but I’m still just barely halfway through my exams. I have Chemistry tomorrow, and then English Paper 2, Physics, German and Maths Paper 2 next week. :frown:

That book sounds great – I can’t wait until next Thursday when I can finally dig into the little pile of books I’ve been accumulating!

Oh and @noda_me I can't make it to the SOAS taster day, but I am going to their main open day in June :smile:

Anyways, my Chemistry past papers are calling me… (*sobs*)

Reply 924

Original post by Jun-Ling

Aw I'm sorry to hear that - I bet they didn't go as badly as you think. All of my exams had been going really well (haha even maths, which isn't usually the case) until geography today... I think because my other subjects like chemistry and physics are so much more challenging I kept putting off revising for geography, which I now realise was stupid. And the timing for it was crazy - I didn't hear of anyone who actually managed to finish the paper! 😪

Hehe, you didn't see the question... It was about herb bags in the Dragon Boat Festival. HERB BAGS. wtf edexcel :angry:

It was pretty funny though, on the listening there was a woman interviewing a guys called Neil. Firstly she said his name totally wrong (neowww), then it transpired that Neil had wanted to work in Africa after his history degree, but somehow ended up teaching English in China despite not knowing any Chinese :confused:

Original post by kholland

@Steliata Maybe they all got the wrong answers. :sly:

Haha, let's hope so!

Original post by noda_me

@Steliata @Jun-Ling On that note, well done to everyone doing their exams this year - I'm sure all of the hard work will do you guys justice! 💪 (Btw Jun-Ling, I tried messaging Kingy0Hanabi on Insta a while ago, but she hasn't got back to me quite yet! I understand she must be very busy with exams and such like and the like though 😆)

Aw, thanks :P hopefully it will pay off on results day!

Original post by noda_me

By the way, is anyone else going to the Japan/Korea Taster Day at SOAS on the 15th June?

I am! I'm really excited. Need to get my train tickets sorted sharpish though!

Reply 925

kholland

2

Original post by Steliata

Hehe, you didn't see the question... It was about herb bags in the Dragon Boat Festival. HERB BAGS. wtf edexcel :angry:

Oh wow, that's a bit unfair. However it does remind me of a funny story involving those herb bags. My Chinese Aunty bought me one when I was younger to take with me on the plane back to England, culturally they're meant to ward off evil spirits, a lucky charm of sorts (maybe that ties in with the whole Dragon Boat Festival thing where the elders make them for the children of the family). I don't know why but when we got home I decided to put it in my Dad's pillowcase and needless to say the scent of strong Chinese herbal medicine didn't fit well with his sleeping pattern... :colone:

Reply 926

AlexBakSik

11

Original post by kholland

I don't understand how I've managed to completely miss out this page of discussion... I actually got onto the programme despite only matching a few of the criteria - state school and parents not going to university, (Mum went to theatre school/Dad was in the RAF) so I have no clue how they sorted that one out! I've been chatting to some people on Moodle, which is a mini forum for the attendees of the programme and most want to do either Chinese or Japanese so I'm hoping for more posters on this thread.

Also after my last exam on Friday (whoop!) I was thinking of sorting out the first post, do any of you have an idea of what I could put in it? I was thinking of a similar format to the 'Official Cambridge Applicants' thread with essential links etc. Maybe make a list of our usernames for the language we're applying for?

I'm not too sure how to use the moodle site, I haven't had a proper look yet, but I signed up for the two day language course.

Original post by noda_me

@AlexBakSik Wow, that competition sounds incredible! Serious congrats 🤓 And I agree that your exams most likely went better than you thought! Personally I can't stop looking back in hindsight at the exams which I've done and picking up on the mistakes, but I'm told it's a very normal thing to do! 😌

Cheers mate, I guess I'll see what happens in the summer.

All that's left now is to finish of the last few exams, and start building a good PS. I have a pile of books sitting on my desk! XD
Perhaps with a strong PS, a good pre-interview test, and some good sample essays, I could scrape an interview.

Reply 927

noda_me

@kholland Sounds great! I just got my dad to order at least eight books across quite a broad time period and with some titles on China/Korea as well, so I should definitely be occupied while travelling too. By the way, all I know at the moment is that I leave for a China on the 20th and we have a concert at Beijjng Concert Hall on the 23rd, for which we had to make a slightly entertaining advertisement video featuring the words "We love Beijing, we love Beijing Concert Hall, and see you on the 23rd July!" 😂 I'll have to private message you the Shanghai dates when I get them 😊

@Jun-Ling By the way, I may have asked this before but is there booking required for the SOAS open day? I guess I'll find out anyway on the 15th though!

@Steliata Yay! We'll have to figure out a way to identify each other before the day! 😉

@AlexBakSik Awh, best of luck for your remaining exams, and with all the summer application prep! 🤓

Reply 928

Original post by noda_me

@kholland Sounds great! I just got my dad to order at least eight books across quite a broad time period and with some titles on China/Korea as well, so I should definitely be occupied while travelling too. By the way, all I know at the moment is that I leave for a China on the 20th and we have a concert at Beijjng Concert Hall on the 23rd, for which we had to make a slightly entertaining advertisement video featuring the words "We love Beijing, we love Beijing Concert Hall, and see you on the 23rd July!" 😂 I'll have to private message you the Shanghai dates when I get them 😊

@Jun-Ling By the way, I may have asked this before but is there booking required for the SOAS open day? I guess I'll find out anyway on the 15th though!

@Steliata Yay! We'll have to figure out a way to identify each other before the day! 😉

@AlexBakSik Awh, best of luck for your remaining exams, and with all the summer application prep! 🤓

Yes, there is actually a booking form here :smile:

:

https://crm.dataharvesting.com/podC7RK/index/

(btw I signed up for the Japan/Korea, Student Experience Panel, Parent Q&A and Careers talks)

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 929

noda_me

Original post by Jun-Ling

Yes, there is actually a booking form here :smile:

:

https://crm.dataharvesting.com/podC7RK/index/

(btw I signed up for the Japan/Korea, Student Experience Panel, Parent Q&A and Careers talks)

Thank you so much, but I've just realised I'm in Scotland on that day! 😭 Hopefully I'll be able to get my questions answered on the Taster Day in that case, or go to another open day during the Autumn Term...:'(

Reply 930

Xphoenix

18

Does anyone know if the residential course in the summer at Trinity is any good or whether it is just an extended version of the taster day we went on?
https://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/access/residentials/languages/apply

Link FYI

Reply 931

Original post by Xphoenix

Does anyone know if the residential course in the summer at Trinity is any good or whether it is just an extended version of the taster day we went on?
https://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/access/residentials/languages/apply

Link FYI

I'm not sure, but I've applied anyway since I didn't go on the taster day and I didn't get a place on the summer school. :smile:

Reply 932

AlexBakSik

11

Original post by Xphoenix

Does anyone know if the residential course in the summer at Trinity is any good or whether it is just an extended version of the taster day we went on?
https://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/access/residentials/languages/apply

Link FYI

It looks interesting, unfortunately I can't make it :/

Is anybody going to the college open days? I'm thinking about looking at Churchill, but I'm not sure what other colleges to visit, I may see what ones are open on the same day! XD

Reply 933

Original post by AlexBakSik

It looks interesting, unfortunately I can't make it :/

Is anybody going to the college open days? I'm thinking about looking at Churchill, but I'm not sure what other colleges to visit, I may see what ones are open on the same day! XD

I don't think I'll go to any specific college open days in summer (maybe in September) because I'm going on the general open day on the 1st of July. I've pretty much decided which college I want to go to (Corpus Christi) but I'll still look at others I think. Purely because I love looking around the colleges and soaking up the atmosphere :ahee:

Usually they're all open if you say you're a potential applicant, so even if you go to a specific college open day you can go and look around others. I popped into the porter's lodge at Corpus after the AMES open day and the head Porter offered to take us on a tour, so perhaps you could try asking the porters too? It might only be the smaller colleges that offer you a tour, but they'll all offer you a prospectus :smile:

Reply 934

AlexBakSik

11

Just booked my college open day at Churchill. Is anybody going to the Sheffield open day?

Reply 935

Xphoenix

18

Original post by Steliata

I don't think I'll go to any specific college open days in summer (maybe in September) because I'm going on the general open day on the 1st of July. I've pretty much decided which college I want to go to (Corpus Christi) but I'll still look at others I think. Purely because I love looking around the colleges and soaking up the atmosphere :ahee:

Usually they're all open if you say you're a potential applicant, so even if you go to a specific college open day you can go and look around others. I popped into the porter's lodge at Corpus after the AMES open day and the head Porter offered to take us on a tour, so perhaps you could try asking the porters too? It might only be the smaller colleges that offer you a tour, but they'll all offer you a prospectus :smile:

I can confirm this, our school is taking a group of us to Cambridge (not on Open Day) to minimise us missing school but it's also in conjunction with our higher education and careers week so we wouldn't be missing lessons etc. We've been told that all colleges are open, some will have people who can tour us, whereas others will just give you prospectus and maps, and allow you to have a walk around.

Reply 936

Well my exams have finally finished :ahee:

Time to get to work on all that wider reading I've been putting off all year until after exams!

Original post by AlexBakSik

Just booked my college open day at Churchill. Is anybody going to the Sheffield open day?

I think I'm going to go to the Sheffield open day on the 18th of July, the 23rd of June is a bit chaotic in my house what with it being the EU referendum! But I'm definitely going to see Sheffield, apparently their Japanese department is quite well established :smile:

Reply 937

Steliata

Well my exams have finally finished :ahee:

Time to get to work on all that wider reading I've been putting off all year until after exams!

I think I'm going to go to the Sheffield open day on the 18th of July, the 23rd of June is a bit chaotic in my house what with it being the EU referendum! But I'm definitely going to see Sheffield, apparently their Japanese department is quite well established :smile:

Woo well done! 🎉🙃 I assume everything else went well apart from that Chinese listening? Yes, even though Sheffield aren't great on the league tables, I've heard very good things about their Japanese Studies department. It's really weird though because for Irish applicants they require 4 H1s (which is a very demanding offer actually).... even for Cambridge they only ask for 3.

Reply 938

Original post by Jun-Ling

Woo well done! 🎉🙃 I assume everything else went well apart from that Chinese listening? Yes, even though Sheffield aren't great on the league tables, I've heard very good things about their Japanese Studies department. It's really weird though because for Irish applicants they require 4 H1s (which is a very demanding offer actually).... even for Cambridge they only ask for 3.

It did apart from the paper 2 in English... Essentially the specification and specimen paper said that the topics that could come up would be language and gender, language and occupation or accent and dialect, and on the specimen paper the essay question (where you have to write about theory and analyse some data) was either gender or occupation and then you had to write an article on accent and dialect.

In the actual exam, however, the essay question was either language and social groups (say whaaaaa?) or accent and dialect, both of which had god-awful sources where there was literally nothing to analyse, and then the article was on gender :angry:

let's just say I panicked when I opened the paper, especially since I learned 42 theorists for the topics we were told to revise and couldn't use most of them!

Even so, we're all in the same boat so I'm hoping the grade boundaries will reflect that... And aside from that it all went well, so I'm happy :smile:

Yeah, I've heard good things too, plus I passed through Sheffield the other day and I really liked the city! I didn't get chance to walk around or anything because we were en route to a wedding but it looked good. That's a crazy offer though! Have they definitely got that right?! :eek:

Reply 939