Tsa

I was wondering if in the TSA you could write things down on a peice of paper, like do the mental arithmetic on paper instead of in your head? Thanks for any help

Reply 1

Anatheme

It's not mental arithmetic then, is it ? :p:

Reply 2

charlie123

haha, yea i know but like some of the maths

yes you can

Is there a book I can get to help me with the TSA?

I'm applying to Economics and the other day I tried the TSA for the first time- got 36%...oh god!! :s-smilie:

Reply 5

jhuang11

Can someone plz help moi!!

Reply 6

charlie123

even if its the online version? thanks

Reply 7

SunderX

They give you scrap working paper. Not that it actually helps that much.

In any case, I usually scribble a bit on exam papers/my hand anyway.

Reply 8

planarian

Critical thinking textbooks or IQ test samples might be helpful - some reading is recommended on the TSA website: http://www.admissionstests.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/adt/tsacambridge/Test+Preparation?primaryNodeId=101875
However, I don't think you can (or should, for that matter) prepare excessively for the TSA - in the end, it really just comes down to ThinkingSA. Maybe you are simply unfamiliar with the style of questions, in which case you might want to read the 'TSA Specifications' downloadable on the website; they explain how various types of questions can be tackled.
Good luck! :smile:

Reply 9

acrosstheuniverse

jhuang11

Is there a book I can get to help me with the TSA?

I'm applying to Economics and the other day I tried the TSA for the first time- got 36%...oh god!! :s-smilie:

It's not really urgent as you have months until you'll be taking it and it only forms a small part of their assessment of you. I did a TSA with no preparation and i was fine, stop worrying about it!

Reply 10

The West Wing

How did you get 36%? That's not much better than randomly choosing :s-smilie:

.

Have you thought about applying to a college that doesn't use it? (or Oxford?)

Reply 11

Helenia

I'm merging these so we can keep all TSA discussion in the same thread.

Reply 12

Leprechaun

Try SAT books. The questions are similar to those of TSA. Having said that, you can't really improve anything - just familiarizing yourself with the time constraint and question types.

People with a score above 80% on the TSA were all accepted (probably 07 stats). Though there isn't necessarily any causality involved, just some interesting info.

Reply 13

sammyrj

I don't want to sound like a whingebucket, but for goodness sake don't spend time agonising over the TSA! It's one of the least important parts of the process, and I'm told many colleges use it just for research purposes at the moment! If you've got a good logical brain on you it's easy.

Reply 14

Jacobite

I remember the Admissions Tutor at the Trinity open day last year declaring that the TSA was only useful in that there was a well-established *inverse* correllation between performance in the TSA and performance in tripos.

Reply 15

splee

Jacobite

which subject?

Reply 16

Jacobite

I think he was just speaking in general - it was the Admissions Tutor for Arts.

Reply 17

charlie123

so if the TSA isn't too important what do you guys think is the most important part for natural sciences, the PS, interview, or AS level UMS, or anything else?

Reply 18

planarian

Probably the interview - everyone who applies will have ridiculously good grades (and whether you've got 91% or 93% doesn't make much difference), your PS will be written for Phys/Che/Bio and not NatSci in particular, and there's not much more they actually know about you (some people say being on familiar terms with the president might help, or a nice donation to the college - in my opinion, that's rubbish, but you never know).
Obviously only an admissions tutor could answer your question fully, but, yeah, my guess would be the interview.

Reply 19

Jacobite

Apparently the PS is not actually used to assess your application as such (I believe this to be broadly true across the university, it certainly applied to me when I went for history at Peterhouse) but instead to provide material for discussion in the interview.