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

Have people still not sat the exam today because I think I read earlier on this forum that some people were taking it tomorrow but I'm not entirely sure if that is correct :confused:

Well, I'm in the U.S. and I just took it like an hour or two ago.

Reply 741

Dprince

9

Original post by Teddysmith123

Have people still not sat the exam today because I think I read earlier on this forum that some people were taking it tomorrow but I'm not entirely sure if that is correct :confused:

Original post by khaifuj

Well, I'm in the U.S. and I just took it like an hour or two ago.

Says in the little red thing at the top that I didn't spot that we can't talk about it till 17:00 tomorrow or risk punishment from TSR. Delete your posts quoting me pls :tongue:

Haha, you mug.

Section 1 was an atrocity. I had such high hopes for this test, but I found it rather difficult. The maths/problem solving questions were fun (some were dreadful though) but I feel I truly farked up the critical thinking ones. I highly doubt I will get an interview, but if I do, chances are I just scraped the necessary mark and that Oxford will treat me as a charity case. Bye bye Oxford dream :s-smilie:

Reply 744

NikolaT

15

Original post by FeelingFear

Section 1 was an atrocity. I had such high hopes for this test, but I found it rather difficult. The maths/problem solving questions were fun (some were dreadful though) but I feel I truly farked up the critical thinking ones. I highly doubt I will get an interview, but if I do, chances are I just scraped the necessary mark and that Oxford will treat me as a charity case. Bye bye Oxford dream :s-smilie:

This is a good summation of my own position.

I knew ye well, Oxford dream, I'm gonna miss ya.

Reply 745

samthemiller

10

Original post by FeelingFear

Section 1 was an atrocity. I had such high hopes for this test, but I found it rather difficult. The maths/problem solving questions were fun (some were dreadful though) but I feel I truly farked up the critical thinking ones. I highly doubt I will get an interview, but if I do, chances are I just scraped the necessary mark and that Oxford will treat me as a charity case. Bye bye Oxford dream :s-smilie:

fuk da systum we better than this

roll on university of leeds!!!!

Reply 746

Mez24

OP

3

I felt like it went really terribly. In past papers I was generally managing low-mid 70s, and I'd be amazed if I got above a 63 in the paper today—I had to guess 4 or 5 questions. I actually thought the essays were quite interesting, but mostly because I'd debated some of the topics at MUN.
Does anyone know what kind of weighting the TSA has against A levels?
Good Luck for interviews everyone :smile:

Reply 747

Christensenson

7

I did horrendously on section one, and will be very lucky if I manage to scrape enough to get an interview. I am glad to see others feel the same way though, might pull it down a bit. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Overall it felt worse than last year, and then I got 60.1 (after an all-nighter). So frustrating consider my relatively stable 75+ on practice papers. The TSA ended up being a large part of why I was rejected post-interview as well. My feedback letter from Oxford said:

Nathalie's TSA result was on the lower end of those candidates short-listed for interview across the university. [...] Overall her interview performance was not strong enough to compensate for her rather weak TSA score

So yeah, I'm basically repeating last year - if I'm even lucky enough to get short-listed, which seems unlikely at this point. Goodbye Oxford dreams.

Last year was PPE at Magdalen btw, for those interested. This year at Wadham.

Reply 748

kimiaak

The wait is so painful, is it about 1-3 weeks until we hear about interviews? I do not think the paper went very well either, ah well. It is done now, no point thinking about it I suppose.

Reply 749

daisydai

Hey guys, I just finished my TSA. Is there anyone remember a question asking what is the flaw about the rising rate of offense among women is due to alcohol drinking? What is the right answer?

Reply 750

PaulKrugman

7

Original post by daisydai

Hey guys, I just finished my TSA. Is there anyone remember a question asking what is the flaw about the rising rate of offense among women is due to alcohol drinking? What is the right answer?

Not till tomorrow @ 5GMT matey.

Reply 751

username891280

2

Section 1 was horrendous. I was forced to guess a fair few critical thinking questions and the problem solving wasn't amazing.. Seeing as the analysis of results is split up into critical thinking and problem solving, do you think Oxford will consider whether you had a tendency to get more marks in one type, or do they just look at the comparative scaled mark?

Loved the essay section; does anyone know if that holds any notable weighting in the decision process?

I think it'll be a God send if I manage to scrape an interview :frown:

Reply 752

PolarBearSlayer

1

Original post by Christensenson

I did horrendously on section one, and will be very lucky if I manage to scrape enough to get an interview. I am glad to see others feel the same way though, might pull it down a bit. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Overall it felt worse than last year, and then I got 60.1 (after an all-nighter). So frustrating consider my relatively stable 75+ on practice papers. The TSA ended up being a large part of why I was rejected post-interview as well. My feedback letter from Oxford said:

So yeah, I'm basically repeating last year - if I'm even lucky enough to get short-listed, which seems unlikely at this point. Goodbye Oxford dreams.

Last year was PPE at Magdalen btw, for those interested. This year at Wadham.

I'm in the same boat as you. Irritating. It's funny how when you're in the actual exam everything just goes so differently and it's so much harder to think. I had a timing issue and also the maths questions took too long so resulted in a fair few problem solving 'educated guesses' earlier in the paper.
Oh well.

Reply 753

username1484683

15

lol I didn't even have time for educated guesses by the end. Just picked D on most of them to send a subliminal message to the Oxford ****ers: suck on my dick!

Reply 754

kurofune

16

Original post by Logolept

lol I didn't even have time for educated guesses by the end. Just picked D on most of them to send a subliminal message to the Oxford ****ers: suck on my dick!

You know, I thought I would have to do that. But the timing on my clock was wrong, and I had some extra time. Fair amount of the guessed answers were surprisingly right. Maybe time crunch gets the juices flowing.

Reply 755

Puddles the Monkey

21

Original post by Dprince

Says in the little red thing at the top that I didn't spot that we can't talk about it till 17:00 tomorrow or risk punishment from TSR. Delete your posts quoting me pls :tongue:

It's not punishment from TSR you need to worry about, it's disadvantaging yourself by giving everyone else who hasn't sat the exam yet a headstart! :wink:

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 756

Dprince

9

Original post by Puddles the Monkey

It's not punishment from TSR you need to worry about, it's disadvantaging yourself by giving everyone else who hasn't sat the exam yet a headstart! :wink:

This is true! I read that they used 180 different questions in 5 different TSA papers so there's a 5/18 chance that they will have benefitted from me :wink:

Reply 757

Dprince

9

Sound, now we're actually allowed to talk about it I've forgotten most of the questions.

If anyone had the one about the elevator with the broken lights, and it said how many floors could he be on, what was the answer? I had to skim read it and I just put 9 thinking there were 10 floors and he could no longer be on the ground floor.

Reply 758

username976741

13

Original post by Dprince

Sound, now we're actually allowed to talk about it I've forgotten most of the questions.

If anyone had the one about the elevator with the broken lights, and it said how many floors could he be on, what was the answer? I had to skim read it and I just put 9 thinking there were 10 floors and he could no longer be on the ground floor.