MAT 2017 Discussion thread

Q6 and Q7 was somewhat doable for me lol. I left Q2 almost entirely blank, had no idea what was i doing :/

I couldn't stand Q6 this time, completely not the type of puzzle I enjoy! I got so fed up I read 7 and it looked quite nice but I don't have the joy of completing it.

Hi, I used extra sheet on the back for Q3, but I accidently marked the question number as Q4. I already mentioned in the question paper that I used extra sheet for Q3 before moving on to the back of the page. Could this be a problem?

Can anyone who has done the MAT test tell me how you practiced for the test? I am only in year 11 but I would like some practice for the MAT test so I have more chance of getting into a good university like Oxford for Computer Science. The most practice I have had at the moment is the yearly UKMT Maths challenge tests I have done for the past two years and some practice I did for those two tests.

So since you're in year 11, here's my advice.
Do as many different types of problems you can find. Do not! And I repeat do not just stick to the past papers as a source of preparation. That is essentially what I did and that's where I screwed up. The type of questions they ask changes every year, so past papers may only help to make you get familiar with the format of the questions and get a feel for the time conditions, but to get a high score (for example above 70 for this years paper) you must solve a wide variety of problems and make yourself fluent with a whole range of mathematical techniques and concepts.
Also, people may disagree with me on this but do the past papers in 2hrs 10mins. Give yourself 20mins less just to make sure you don't run out of time in the actual exam. Just a bit of context - I did all the past papers under timed conditions and was consistently getting above 70. This year I will be lucky to get anything between 50 - 60. So yeah, do past papers but don't be complacent when scoring highly on them.

I don't know how to find different types of problems. I know the problems are from C1 and C2. I have not completed C2 yet but do I take different problems that involved similiar concepts to both modules?

Are you applying for Maths or Compsci ?