Gap year applicant (Trinity Natural Sciences).

Hi, unfortunately was not able to apply to Cambridge/University this year due to mitigating circumstances (illness in family, my own depression and moving from the UK). I have however achieved 4 A*s in Maths, FM, Phys, Chem, and was hoping to apply to Trinity. I just wanted to know for the entrance exam (for Physics students) what does this 'familiarity with Further Mathematics' entail? Also, are there any other past papers apart from the sample on on Trinity's website? How many questions do people who are given offers usually answer on their test? Five, six?

Regards

-Ziu.

Hi, sorry to hear about your circumstances last year but congratulations on your fantastic results! I'm starting at Trinity this year doing ChemEng via NatSci.

By "entrance exam" do you mean the pre-interview test? If so "familiarity with further mathematics" probably just means doing or having done further maths A level (which you have). (I can't find where this is quoted from though)

There's only the one sample paper on the Trinity website, but there are similar sample papers for other colleges and similar questions can be found elsewhere e.g. the physics and engineering pages on here might be useful: http://nrich.maths.org/advancedstem

I've used https://brilliant.org/ a bit, too.

There are also a fair number of physics/maths specimen Oxbridge interview tests around on the internet which I worked through in preparing for a Cambridge NatSci interview/pre-interview test, though my main preparation was working through the archives of the BPhO. e.g. http://www.magd.cam.ac.uk/uploads/Ap...ST_test_08.pdf
http://www.dow.cam.ac.uk/documents/t...Maths_test.pdf
http://www.dow.cam.ac.uk/documents/t...ec_ns_test.pdf
http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~achc2/sample2011.pdf
http://www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/physics/...questions1.pdf

I've not got any books of physics problem solving, but there seem to be loads available on the internet e.g. http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_...ysics+problems
Maybe also look at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxbridge-Int...sics+interview

You could also have a look at old AEA Physics papers

I can't remember how many questions I answered on pre-interview test, I think it was maybe 7, but I don't know how many offer-holders typical answered. The test paper I had actually said to only answer one or two questions from each of the two sections though haha.

Hi, sorry to hear about your circumstances last year but congratulations on your fantastic results! I'm starting at Trinity this year doing ChemEng via NatSci.

Hi Claree, Happened to stumble by this thread by accident. Thank you for the advice. I was wondering if there was anything you could recommend to prepare for an interview in chemistry?

Hey! There are various things you could do:
-make sure you know your AS chemistry material, and what you've done so far in A2 inside out
-practise applying the chemistry you know to questions of the style you might get in an interview, have a go at some questions, then see how much further you can get after looking some things up that might help (this is similar to an interviewer giving hints if you get stuck in an interview), then practise explaining your thought process either to someone else or just in your head. Have a look at the specimen papers you can find online e.g. the Trinity NatSci specimen test, and also at past chemistry olympiad questions (this is what I found most useful when preparing for my interview)
-you might get some questions applying maths to chemistry, having a look at the chemistry pages on chemnrich might be useful
-if it were longer before the interview period I would recommend reading something like Keeler and Wother's Why Chemical Reactions Happen if you haven't already (or any similar book that gives some idea into what's covered in 1st year chemistry)