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Are Maths Degrees Dumbed Down?

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Original post by Complex Simplicity
Have I missed something? When did the University of Greenwich become synonamous with Aberystwyth?

You said Greenwich maths is easier than imperial/Cambridge. I asked for evidence, you use an exam from Aberystwyth. Is this a joke or do you not see flaw?


Also, read my response to KSP about difficulty before responding.


The university of Greenwich has an entrance tariff of 200 UCAS points with 60 from maths. The university of Aberystwyth has a tariff of 340, with an A in maths. Whilst I am not foolish enough to consider entry requirements as definitive of the quality of students, it does suggest that students entering Aberystwyth are better at mathematics when they enter than students entering Greenwich. With this in mind, it would be silly to claim that the first year exam at Greenwich is much more difficult than the corresponding exam at Aberystwyth. Greenwich was just an arbitrary example, anyway; Aberystwyth serves just as well.

In your response to KSP, you wrote:

'The only valid comparison would be between exams in the same topic area where one requires the use of higher concepts than the other and where to get marks requires greater displays of conceptual understanding than the other'.

This is precisely what the Cambridge exam paper does, as any maths student will be able to tell you. Some of those Aberystwyth questions could be answered by applying algorithmic-like methods requiring almost no understanding.
Original post by ForGreatJustice
Complex Simplicity is an even greater troll than Simplicity was back in the day... I am in awe

Well now you know that the IMO medallists at Cambridge are just as good, if not worse, than the Mathmos from Greenwich who couldn't even get a B in A-Level Maths. Greenwich Uni must do absolute wonders to transform its students! :rolleyes:
Original post by Complex Simplicity
Do I take from this response that you don't have the evidence to back up your assertions. And you admit they are assertions based on opinion rather than unequivocal fact?


Certainly not. Whilst what I am expressing is technically an opinion, it is of the sort such as 'acting on paedophiliic urges is morally wrong', something which almost everyone will agree with. I am starting to suspect that you are just trying to annoy everyone.
Original post by Complex Simplicity
Back to Ucas points again. Sigh. Reread my responses. Using the beginning of a journey to judge the end is absurd.

Repeat after me: The University of Greenwich is not the same as Aberystwyth University
The University of Greenwich is different from Aberystwyth University
I can't judge the difficulty of Greenwich exams using Aberystwyth exams


You have just ignored the bits of my post which are inconvenient to your argument. Please reread my whole post. Pay special attention to the part where I wrote: 'Greenwich is just an arbitrarily chosen example'. Also, the part where I wrote 'when they enter', which was underlined in an attempt to prevent the predictable response you have given.
(edited 13 years ago)
Original post by j.alexanderh
Certainly not. Whilst what I am expressing is technically an opinion, it is of the sort such as 'acting on paedophiliic urges is morally wrong', something which almost everyone will agree with. I am starting to suspect that you are just trying to annoy everyone.


Good progress.

So the belief of the majority is to be taken as fact. I won't begrudge your opinion but remember the majority thought that the world was flat. The majority thought the Sun orbits the Earth. The majority still thinks the weather causes the common cold. In each of these cases the majority was wrong so forgive me if I choose to base things on evidence rather than the wisdom of the majority.
Original post by KSP
I would agree that this whole debate is based on a matter of opinion; it must be, after all there isn't any evidence to support any of this. However, people make these assertions because it is general consensus, even in universities. My own academic tutor, who is a lecturer, said himself that my own course (maths) is designed with the students in mind and pitched at a level to match that of the ability of the students. As you mentioned before i think, there's a hierarchy of ability and the course is designed to try and allow each level to get something out of it. The only measure of ability that universities have of prospective students is their A-levels and entrance exams (STEP in the case of maths). Obviously A-levels aren't a great indicator, but they are an indicator nonetheless.

With regards to difficulty being subjective, i agree, but i think it's a lot less so in a subject like maths for people of the same ability. You mentioned that a valid comparison would be between exams in the same topic area, where one requires greater conceptual understanding than the others. That's actually the case with maths exams. I'm quite sure that very few students in my year would disagree that the Cambridge paper posted earlier in this thread is more difficult than the ones we sat a couple years back. The questions are on the same material, but they're more probing of your understanding. There's no concrete evidence and there probably never will be, but i think with science degrees, and maths especially, a fair amount can be deduced about the course based on its exams.

I respect your opinion your point on maths exams was particular well made.
Original post by Complex Simplicity
Good progress.

So the belief of the majority is to be taken as fact. I won't begrudge your opinion but remember the majority thought that the world was flat. The majority thought the Sun orbits the Earth. The majority still thinks the weather causes the common cold. In each of these cases the majority was wrong so forgive me if I choose to base things on evidence rather than the wisdom of the majority.


But those are things which have a correct answer, unlike difficulty; the difficulty of something must, due to its subjective nature, be judged by majority opinion although this will only be valid if the majority is sufficiently large; a 1% majority won't convince anyone. In this case it's safe to say that the majority will be very close to 100%, and if you are not impressed with this bit of hand-waving then I will start a thread in the maths forum asking undergraduates which paper they think is more difficult.
Original post by j.alexanderh
You have just ignored the bits of my post which are inconvenient to your argument. Please reread my whole post. Pay special attention to the part where I wrote: 'Greenwich is just an arbitrarily chosen example'. Also, the part where I wrote 'when they enter', which was underlined in an attempt to prevent the predictable response you have given.


Sure but Greenwich is therefore an example that you can't use as you have no evidence for Greenwich. Would you not agree?
Reply 88
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Gimothy
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Original post by innerhollow
The evidence exists, but I don't have the ability to acquire and compare degree-level exam papers. Sorry. :frown:

It seems blatantly obvious though. Imperial takes some of the best mathematicians in the country and achieves a rather mediocre Good Honours rate of ony 60%. Greenwich takes some very average mathematicians and its Maths courses achieve a rather high Good Honours rate of 85%. We could discuss other factors such as student satisfaction and course structure but you'd be hard-pressed to explain such a ridiculous disparity. I simply refuse to believe that those two courses are even comparable in difficulty.


I study maths at Nottingham, typically seen as a mid-tier course, and I haven't been awe-struck by the level of difficulty in past papers from Imperial. Cambridge is a lot hard. A lot lot harder. But others, I'm not so sure of.
CS, if the courses were equally as hard, do you not find it weird that IMO medallists at Cambridge get the same marks as some Greenwich students, who couldn't even get B's in A-Level Maths? That would mean Greenwich have some deadly good professors, and that Greenwich had a propensity for taking on 'bright but extremely lazy and underachieving students' ... hence they could be moulded into top students outperforming the IMOers. Isn't this line of argument farfetched when Cambridge is supposed to attract the best academics and have a great tutorial system? Your implications are that Greenwich do a better a job than Cambridge, which nobody has ever suggested. So the likelihood of courses being equal is very, very low.
Original post by Complex Simplicity
Sure but Greenwich is therefore an example that you can't use as you have no evidence for Greenwich. Would you not agree?


Okay, if we are going to be that pedantic about evidence then forget Greenwich and we'll talk about Aberystwyth. It is still entirely reasonable to extrapolate that Greenwich exams are easier than Aberystwyth ones, and only a scientific examination of the two courses would require the degree of rigour you call for, but why not?
Reply 91
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RK92
2
CS - youre making a fool out of yourself, stop being so bloody pedantic. youve been proven wrong (in the case of aberystwyth) so give it a rest.
Original post by j.alexanderh
But those are things which have a correct answer, unlike difficulty; the difficulty of something must, due to its subjective nature, be judged by majority opinion although this will only be valid if the majority is sufficiently large; a 1% majority won't convince anyone. In this case it's safe to say that the majority will be very close to 100%, and if you are not impressed with this bit of hand-waving then I will start a thread in the maths forum asking undergraduates which paper they think is more difficult.


Ah but that wasn't the question. Your premise would be correct if the question was is this paper difficult, or is this more difficult to do than that? In both cases the evidence is presented. The judgements are valid. However The question was is Greenwich maths easier than ICL/Cambridge math? Unless you can provide all the evidence to allow people to make an informed judgement, you will simply proliferate assertions. And assertions can and often are wrong
Original post by Complex Simplicity
Ah but that wasn't the question. Your premise would be correct if the question was is this paper difficult, or is this more difficult to do than that? In both cases the evidence is presented. The judgements are valid. However The question was is Greenwich maths easier than ICL/Cambridge math? Unless you can provide all the evidence to allow people to make an informed judgement, you will simply proliferate assertions. And assertions can and often are wrong


As you will have seen by the time you read this, we are now talking about Aberystwyth. What do you define as the difficulty of the course, other than the exams? They are what the degree classes are awarded on.
Original post by Physics Enemy
CS, if the courses were equally as hard, do you not find it weird that IMO medallists at Cambridge get the same marks as some Greenwich students, who couldn't even get B's in A-Level Maths? That would mean Greenwich have some deadly good professors, and that Greenwich had a propensity for taking on 'bright but extremely lazy and underachieving students' ... hence they could be moulded into top students outperforming the IMOers. Isn't this line of argument farfetched when Cambridge is supposed to attract the best academics and have a great tutorial system? Your implications are that Greenwich do a better a job than Cambridge, which nobody has ever suggested. So the likelihood of courses being equal is very, very low.


No it is entirely possible, indeed I would say its probable however we're not talking about marks here. As I said earlier a Cambridge student can get 95% a Greenwich student 75% both get first. And only classification is measured not the marks
Original post by Complex Simplicity
Sure but Greenwich is therefore an example that you can't use as you have no evidence for Greenwich. Would you not agree?

I wouldn't agree. This argument is not specific to Greenwich, unless Greenwich is special. The argument is that supposedly cr*p universities may actually deliver equally difficult degree courses to Cambridge, which of course nobody believes.

Someone then posted a maths paper of another cr*p uni, Aberystwyth, and it turned out their 1st year paper was easier than Further Maths A-Level. So this is evidence that there are big differences in difficulty between unis, favouring the majority opinion, and supports the majority view that 'sub-par' unis are easier.

These silly pedantic arguments aren't just about Greenwich vs Cambridge. Imperial and Cambridge Maths papers have been compared before, and Cambridge's papers are considerably harder. Cambridge takes the best mathematicians in the country, heck some of the best in the world, year on year. There is no comparison, to Greenwich, Imperial, or any other inferior University.

The more that sub-par students (who have low IQs, poor academic records in school and could only get into a cr*p University) try to pretend they magically became geniuses and now defeat Oxbridge students, the more delusional and pathetic they come across. It's clearly clutching at straws at the fact that at one point in their life, they're not being compared nationally and derided as such.
Original post by Complex Simplicity
No it is entirely possible, indeed I would say its probable however we're not talking about marks here. As I said earlier a Cambridge student can get 95% a Greenwich student 75% both get first. And only classification is measured not the marks

What makes it probable, how can Greenwich be doing a better job than Cambridge? Cambridge have more money, better academics, a better tutorial system, etc. How could Greenwich do such a better job? Looks like Greenwich better keep hiding their past papers before they're put on the forum for public humiliation. :biggrin:
Original post by Complex Simplicity
No it is entirely possible, indeed I would say its probable however we're not talking about marks here. As I said earlier a Cambridge student can get 95% a Greenwich student 75% both get first. And only classification is measured not the marks


I very much doubt that many, if any, Cambridge students have ever scored 95% in their exams overall.
Original post by j.alexanderh
Okay, if we are going to be that pedantic about evidence then forget Greenwich and we'll talk about Aberystwyth. It is still entirely reasonable to extrapolate that Greenwich exams are easier than Aberystwyth ones, and only a scientific examination of the two courses would require the degree of rigour you call for, but why not?


You're a mathematician! It isn't reasonable to extrapolate one university to another. Again universities are very unique, even oxford and Cambridge are vastly different despite having a shared heritage. Why would you extrapolate a University in London to one from Wales?
And the degree of rigour I called for has been attempted by the Higher Education Institute. They didn't have the instruments and thus couldn't reach a conclusion. Are you better equipped than they?
Original post by j.alexanderh
I very much doubt that many, if any, Cambridge students have ever scored 95% in their exams overall.


Maybe maybe not but the point is clear there is a lot of room around the first class honour and if a Cambridge student is extraordinarily brilliant and take advantage of Cambridges system which caters for ones such as they, then they should do exceptionally well. But they will still only get the same classification as a 71% from Greenwich. First class honours.

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