The Oxford TSA thread - 2015 applicants - 5th Nov 2014

How to go about the essays ? Structure ?

How important is it to include your subject knowledge or can you just write a good essay without it ? How important are essays for Geography admission ?

Thanks

It's stated on the website that the essay-section is an opportunity to show understanding of important issues etc.
But for most questions it would be enough to just have an overview on current affairs, topics that are important for society and especially identifying the context.

It seems that it's really important HOW you say what you know. So if you know a lot about the subject, good for you. But they don't care, as long as you cannot make it relevant to the question. Don't try to include everything that barely relates to the topic just to impress with your knowledge. They'll recognize it and most probably you would have 5-10 minutes less for the actual answer to the question that they consider as important.

Answer the question and include what you know in a original way and you'll be fine.

Hi I'm not sure if this has been asked before I just did the 2009 paper and was wondering if someone could help me with the following questions: 2,6,20,31,36,37,44 and 48.

2. So to create the box you have to fold up the sides. When you fold up the sides, each side of the box becomes 40cm as 5cm is lost at each end. Then the work out volumes its width x depth x height. 40x40x5=8000

6. She put 10 litres in as it was 60c a litre and had $6. Therefore she had 15 litres. She drove for 50km so burnt off 4 litres of fuel, leaving her with 11 litres. Her tank is 50 litres meaning that she fills up with 39 litres. 39x50c is $19.50

20.For every rotation that pulley B does, pulley A does 2 as B is twice the diameter of A. Therefore B rotates 4 times every second. The pulley that's attached the B does the same amount of rotations as B. As it is 1m like A, then pulley C is 4 times the diameter, so it rotates once every second.
I hope you can work out what I mean cos I can't really think how best to explain

31. The restaurant opens 10 times a week for 45 weeks of the year. It therefore opens 450 times a year and serves an average of 20 people per opening, so it serves 9000 people a year. Food for each meal costs £5, meaning that food for the year costs £45000. It costs 1200x45 in wages which is £62400. So now work out the yearly cost of running the restaurant by adding all the costs together. 36000+9000+45000+54000 which gives you £144000. Then just divide that by the total number of meals served which is 9000, giving the answer of 16

36. So the table gives you calories burned per 500m in each session he rowed. So the first session he used 50 calories per 500m or 10 calories per 100m. He rowed 400m so used 40 calories. Second session he used 55 calories per 500m or 11 calories per 100m. He rowed 600m so used 66 calories. In the final session he used 60 calories for the first 500m(as it says) and the in the last 300m, he used 40 calories per 500m or 8 calories per 100m. So over 300m, he used 24 calories.
40+66+60+24=190

37. I'm not sure this was the right way to work it out but the flats are 20m high which is pretty much 3 times as high as the bungalow. So you want a plant that is 3 times higher than the shrub. 1.6x3 is 4.8 which is the height of the hornbeam.

I can't think how to explain 48 and I got 44 wrong myself and haven't figured it out yet

Thanks! So just keeping up to date with reliable news sources is better than me trying to get 3 geography books in before the exam ? How are you going about the structure of your answer ?

Hi that actually makes a lot of sense so thanks! My only problem is will question 31 how do you know its open 10 times a week from the information? It's open for lunch monday to friday so that's 5 times, and then open for dinner on Tuesday and saturday so would that not equate to it being open 7 times or am I overlooking something?

Hey guys, what score do you think will be the cut-off this year (obviously its not definitive, but every year colleges tend to say what the average score of those invited to interviews is).

Will each college have a different cut-off or is just based on the subject?

Hey guys, what score do you think will be the cut-off this year (obviously its not definitive, but every year colleges tend to say what the average score of those invited to interviews is).

Will each college have a different cut-off or is just based on the subject?

Look at the questions from previous years, cramming in 3 geography books will be near useless to you. The questions are designed to make you think as they want to see how you come to a conclusion and how well you argue it. Of course it'd be good to put some knowledge in to aid coming to your conclusion but that knowledge will come from reading/watching the news or having a general knowledge of current issues. They probably won't even be too fussed if you get a couple of things slightly wrong, they're keen to see how you think and your processes rather than pure knowledge.

I'm pretty sure it's just a bunch of paper basically. You'll definitely be given more than two sides of A4

I think the cut of for an interview will probably be around 63, while people with a score of 70 have a better chance of actually receiving an offer (for PPE)

Other subjects might require a lower score though.

Can someone please tell me how to do Question 30 2010!???

Also how would you go about approaching question 31 2010, because it seems very time consuming to figure out all the different combinations

Does anyone know exactly how much paper we get for the essay, because there's a limit isn't there?