Economics Applicant Thread UCAS 2012

Whatcha pick for your A levels mate? Economics tends to need good essay subject skills, but that being said, having good mathematical ability is also a good thing.

You could do Economics with Econometrics or Maths with Economics. Though, essay writing skills can be picked up if you just practise them

Maths, Economics, ICT, Technology

I am definitely dropping technology next year though.

And Econometrics seems interesting, I have looked at it before but I will research in depth.

Nice subjects, and yep Econometrics is pretty good if you like to go into the mathematical aspect of Economics

Thanks, Hopefully I do well in my AS2 module tomorrow

11 weeks to go people until results day! How did the last few exams go?

Are you all going to some open days? Cambridge and UCL have been booked for me.

Hey! Exams went well; the important ones did anyway (maths and economics). Only have one more left How are yours? Have you finished all your exams yet?

I've booked UCL too, as well as Bath

I could potentially be looking at 100% in AS Maths, but C2 had a horrible question in that I couldn't do (blindingly obvious now). I just hope the grade boundaries in Maths accommodate how hard everyone found them (Edexcel)!

Economics went well, thankfully. OCR decided to test the corners of the specification in Biology so the exam didn't go as well as I'd have hoped - not enough theory where you could just rattle out if you'd revised. English Literature who knows.

I have FP1 left on 22nd June but I haven't even looked at that yet. I will when it gets a bit nearer!

My school aren't letting us go to many open days and I work Saturdays so I'm limited to how many universities I can see. I guess I should get my act together and go see some while I'm off school but after 10 weeks of revision my motivation is quite low.

Edexcel C2? You aren't by any chance referring to the "dreaded radius question"? I panicked and put root 3 after a while, but after seeing how it is done it is rather embarrasing that I got it wrong There goes my 100... I'm thinking they won't lower the boundaries that much, because apart from that question, I felt it was generally easier than the Jan 11 paper but that's just me personally

OCR biology was wierd in that it was different from the past papers. I recall possibly 25-30 1 mark questions that require you to "tick the box". Not sure how I did in that tbh...

How do you find FP1? I'm taking AS next year, but I've looked through the textbook and it seems ok

Yes, it was the radius question. I can't believe how easy the method is, but I guess the saying goes when you're in an exam hall, all rationality disappears.

I was trying all these weird methods, I even had the right triangle drawn out, but didn't even recognise it was a right angled triangle and to use $r$ and $6 - r$. Geometry was never my best subject, although I did make a stab at 2 which was right. But because of someone who turned up 3 minutes late, I thought I had 3 minutes left and she said pens down before I could change my guess for part c! Did you get everything else right?

I think the grade boundaries will be lower; all Edexcel exams have been quite sneaky. I did a really easy past-paper from June 2009 where the 100 UMS boundary was 69/75 and there wasn't a single tricky question. Apparently lots of people found the trigonometric equations difficult as they didn't guide you through using the identities to solve the quadratic. Also, the cuboid question stumped a lot of people not giving the height.

Did you do C1? What was your applied module?

Yeah both Biology exams were pretty rubbish. 10 marks on the spirometer was disgraceful in my opinion. On the second exam the 6 marker on tar was stupid given that there is a paragraph on it in the textbook. There wasn't any meaty theory and too many questions where I feel it's down to exam technique. Hopefully the grade boundaries will be kind, as I have already lost 10 UMS from the practicals.

FP1 is fine, actually. It's quite interesting to do different sorts of Maths and it's not too advanced. I just need to make sure this is one of the Maths exams I ace.

Ahh so you did eventually get 2? At least you didn't mess it up totally. I guess you're right, hopefully 100 UMS is around 70marks :P I did C1 in January and did pretty good. I also did S1 a couple of weeks ago, which wasn't too bad but I know I lost at least 1 mark from Arsey's solutions...

Hmm don't remember the spirometer one; I did unit 1 in January so I guess I avoided that one hehe Yes the tar one was a bit unfair because it was asking specifically about cancer; I'm not sure where the 6 marks will come from I'm not sure how much I've lost, maybe you could work it out? I got 31/40, one of the worst in my class, so I need to gain serious marks in the exam.

Cool, I'm looking forward to it. Good luck for your exam!

Ah, I'm looking at 71-74 in S1 depending on how kindly they mark the certificates question on normal distribution. I wrongly assumed it was a distribution of speeds for the race, rather than times, so I gave the top 30% certificates (which in fact would be the slowest 30% with times).

That should be 100 UMS though given previous grade boundaries and the difficulty of this S1 paper. I say difficult, but I mean sneaky.

Yeah, you did miss out on a shocker of a unit 1 paper. There wasn't much coverage at all, just lots of marks on small things. I can't believe I forgot what CITES stood for in the unit 2, I'd even flagged it as something that is likely to come up in the exam. I knew the ITES but not the C: ended up hazarding a guess at constitution instead of convention.

I got 35/40 and my teachers have predicted 50/60 based on last year's boundaries. I presume 31/40 will be 42/60 but I'm not sure.

I quite liked the S1 paper. Barring stupid mistakes, the only one I seemed to get wrong was coding for Shh in the very first question- which we weren't even taught.

Hmm I guess I'm lucky then, I got 81/90 UMS for the biology one which I'm happy with as I'm dropping it next year anyway Assuming I got 42/60 for coursework, I would need around 78% in terms of UMS for an A so it's within reach. I got each seperate word but I put "of" instead of "in" which might sound stupid but you know how picky OCR are...

Ah well, no use debating now, we'll see precisely how well we did in a couple of months

Ah, I left that question to the end and just tried a few values to work it out. If it had been show that, I would've been slightly stumped.

You'll be fine if you got the 5 words in the right order. OCR may be picky, but they're not that mean!

Yes, I need to stop thinking about exams. I just hope that I made the 90%+ average!

Have you had any thoughts about personal statements yet? Are you thinking of applying to Cambridge?

Yeah, I just want exams to be over so I don't have to think about them

I think our college makes us do drafts after exams have finished and we start A2 lessons. Not really looking forward to it as english was never my strong point.

I have thought about it, and decided that I will only apply if I achieve:
Above 90% in maths,economics and biology/chemistry and
At least 2 A* predictions and
A/A* in A Level Chinese

If I meet those criteria I will consider, otherwise I will probably have UCL as my top choice. How about you? Are you definitely applying?

If I don't make the 90% average over my top 3 AS-Levels I will apply to Oxford as the statistics are really against me. I don't think that'll happen so yes, I will be applying to Cambridge!

Ah, just make sure you get an early draft done so you can keep improving it. Try and submit a draft here as the guys who read them are really knowledgable!

has anyone applied to birmingham for mathematics/economics degree?

has anyone applied to birmingham for mathematics/economics degree?

Do you mean applying?