A-level Revelations
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Original post by Sinnoh
Alright listen up I'm actually doing an update here 
So I got an A in my astronomy GCSE. That's cool. Means I have to go back and edit the OP, whilst getting rid of all the extra lines that get added every time you go to edit the thing asdfghjkl
But what did I get in the great test of general academic productivity - i.e. was I a lazy f**ker these past few weeks?
I don't even know. I think I put more effort into preparing this thread than I put into my personal statement writing these past few days. Not to say I haven't worked.
Well, I started making notes for this last Friday so here it is.
I've more or less finalised the lists of unis I'm going to apply for and visit. I booked Birmingham and Southampton for the 15th and 8th of next month, respectively. Booking isn't open for Warwick, those late b*****ds have theirs on the 6th of October. Why not on the 22nd of September, when my school forces everyone to be there for some long assembly?
Anyway I revised an hour of physics on Friday. I see that as a day's work. Unfortunately.
I wrote 1100 or so characters on my personal statement on Saturday. Went to the library again, didn't realise that it was Saturday so waited like some massive swot/hipster outside the library café for 15 minutes before it opened.
Sunday (not that the days of the week mean anything when I'm on holiday) I did another hour of physics. I'm surprised how much I have remembered though. This is the first time I've actually revised this summer. I also did a little bit of planning for an article I'm planning on writing for my school's history magazine. Because I'm so insecure over my PS I'm trying to make it on the Space Race so I have a really vague link to physics. Joy. I finalised the title for it on Tuesday, I think I'm gonna talk about the changing motivations for it. Because they definitely changed.
So on Monday I realised I should put an effort into maths as well because integration's pretty hard, so I did. A full two sides of A4.
Tuesday I thought "Maybe I'll do some of the things I actually really do need to do this summer, like preparing for my history coursework and writing that article". So I actually wrote a short paragraph of that article, which doesn't mention anything of what I actually want to talk about. Then I did some more maths.
On Wednesday I did some maths. Again. I'm like a ****ing heroin addict with this. I know I shouldn't be doing it and the rational part of my brain doesn't want to do it but anything's better than rereading my pretentious and boring PS. IT STILL HAS TO BE DONE.
So yeah, that's the state of me. A borderline maths addict who does it to feel productive. I'm not doing maths today, instead I'm teaching it to one of my friends. Maybe I'll flip a coin to decide between working on my personal statement and working on my coursework. If I'm lucky the coin will explode and kill me.
Have a good week everyone. If you're getting results, congratulations
So I got an A in my astronomy GCSE. That's cool. Means I have to go back and edit the OP, whilst getting rid of all the extra lines that get added every time you go to edit the thing asdfghjkl
But what did I get in the great test of general academic productivity - i.e. was I a lazy f**ker these past few weeks?
I don't even know. I think I put more effort into preparing this thread than I put into my personal statement writing these past few days. Not to say I haven't worked.
Well, I started making notes for this last Friday so here it is.
I've more or less finalised the lists of unis I'm going to apply for and visit. I booked Birmingham and Southampton for the 15th and 8th of next month, respectively. Booking isn't open for Warwick, those late b*****ds have theirs on the 6th of October. Why not on the 22nd of September, when my school forces everyone to be there for some long assembly?
Anyway I revised an hour of physics on Friday. I see that as a day's work. Unfortunately.
I wrote 1100 or so characters on my personal statement on Saturday. Went to the library again, didn't realise that it was Saturday so waited like some massive swot/hipster outside the library café for 15 minutes before it opened.
Sunday (not that the days of the week mean anything when I'm on holiday) I did another hour of physics. I'm surprised how much I have remembered though. This is the first time I've actually revised this summer. I also did a little bit of planning for an article I'm planning on writing for my school's history magazine. Because I'm so insecure over my PS I'm trying to make it on the Space Race so I have a really vague link to physics. Joy. I finalised the title for it on Tuesday, I think I'm gonna talk about the changing motivations for it. Because they definitely changed.
So on Monday I realised I should put an effort into maths as well because integration's pretty hard, so I did. A full two sides of A4.
Tuesday I thought "Maybe I'll do some of the things I actually really do need to do this summer, like preparing for my history coursework and writing that article". So I actually wrote a short paragraph of that article, which doesn't mention anything of what I actually want to talk about. Then I did some more maths.
On Wednesday I did some maths. Again. I'm like a ****ing heroin addict with this. I know I shouldn't be doing it and the rational part of my brain doesn't want to do it but anything's better than rereading my pretentious and boring PS. IT STILL HAS TO BE DONE.
So yeah, that's the state of me. A borderline maths addict who does it to feel productive. I'm not doing maths today, instead I'm teaching it to one of my friends. Maybe I'll flip a coin to decide between working on my personal statement and working on my coursework. If I'm lucky the coin will explode and kill me.
Have a good week everyone. If you're getting results, congratulations
Spoiler
Yay!
Well done for being productive!
I haven't done much this summer either!
Any tips for writing your personal statement?
What do you want to study at Cambridge?
Good Luck!
Original post by Sinnoh
Alright update #2 let's gothere's no way in hell this will be weekly
Thursday 23/8 was GCSE results day so I spent a lot of time on TSR either telling people to stop humblebragging, stop thinking that their GCSEs granted them an instant pass to Oxford or telling them their only option was to retake English and Maths.
Buuuut that wasn't all I did. Actually one of my more productive days. I taught proof by contradiction to a friend over Discord which also served as revision for me. Seriously, if you can't do something, teach it, then you'll definitely be able.
And that's not all I also did the only serious preparation for my history coursework that I've done all holiday. Yesterday I found the sheet we were given about coursework, we have to include at least 12 primary sources. F**K!!!
Friday 24/8 I made serious progress on my coursework and now I think I'm -
nah I just did more maths. Differential equations though, so it was good to review those.
Tuesday 28/8 (I don't think I did anything over the weekend or on Monday, I knew my new year's resolution would go to sh*t during the summer) I went to the library, and rather than trying to amputate the ugly parts off my **** draft of a PS, I just wrote up a whole extra one in an hour and a half using the old one as a base. I didn't once mention Physics of the Future which is a book I bought basically just for this. Misleading title. It's not about physics, for ****s sake. Do not recommend. Actually if you're going for electrical or biomedical engineering, definitely recommend.
But yeah, 3400+ characters and 44 lines including line breaks. I could make it longer and I might. But I'm not looking at it again until next week. I need that objective retrospective look back.
Wednesday 29/8 was the day I stayed the f**k off reddit, TSR, Discord and my laptop. I should do that once a month because I got a fair amount of stuff done. I did about an hour and a half of chapter 10 mechanics (forces and objects and s**t) and then I made a kind of cheat sheet for the connected particles questions in mechanics, because the textbook really does an awful job at explaining it. Here it is though
Side note all you lot posting pictures of your immaculate desks and I'm just sitting in this.
Yes that's a second laptop on the right. It's a piece of crap. The hinge is broken. Had it 4 years.
Thursday 23/8 was GCSE results day so I spent a lot of time on TSR either telling people to stop humblebragging, stop thinking that their GCSEs granted them an instant pass to Oxford or telling them their only option was to retake English and Maths.
Buuuut that wasn't all I did. Actually one of my more productive days. I taught proof by contradiction to a friend over Discord which also served as revision for me. Seriously, if you can't do something, teach it, then you'll definitely be able.
And that's not all I also did the only serious preparation for my history coursework that I've done all holiday. Yesterday I found the sheet we were given about coursework, we have to include at least 12 primary sources. F**K!!!
Friday 24/8 I made serious progress on my coursework and now I think I'm -
nah I just did more maths. Differential equations though, so it was good to review those.
Tuesday 28/8 (I don't think I did anything over the weekend or on Monday, I knew my new year's resolution would go to sh*t during the summer) I went to the library, and rather than trying to amputate the ugly parts off my **** draft of a PS, I just wrote up a whole extra one in an hour and a half using the old one as a base. I didn't once mention Physics of the Future which is a book I bought basically just for this. Misleading title. It's not about physics, for ****s sake. Do not recommend. Actually if you're going for electrical or biomedical engineering, definitely recommend.
But yeah, 3400+ characters and 44 lines including line breaks. I could make it longer and I might. But I'm not looking at it again until next week. I need that objective retrospective look back.
Wednesday 29/8 was the day I stayed the f**k off reddit, TSR, Discord and my laptop. I should do that once a month because I got a fair amount of stuff done. I did about an hour and a half of chapter 10 mechanics (forces and objects and s**t) and then I made a kind of cheat sheet for the connected particles questions in mechanics, because the textbook really does an awful job at explaining it. Here it is though
Side note all you lot posting pictures of your immaculate desks and I'm just sitting in this.
Yes that's a second laptop on the right. It's a piece of crap. The hinge is broken. Had it 4 years.
HOW did you write so much for your personal statement already!???
I have NO idea what to include in it, what to write or how to write it!
Original post by Ariel2611
HOW did you write so much for your personal statement already!???
I have NO idea what to include in it, what to write or how to write it!
I have NO idea what to include in it, what to write or how to write it!
The UCAS deadline for Oxbridge is the 15th of October and I don't want to be worrying about it for a whole extra month. Also my school wants Oxbridge applicants to have their final draft in by the start of term. But I'll be f***ed if I'm writing a whole one again from scratch.
Just FYI, you will hate your personal statement at first.
The whole thing (for me) has basically been about why I'm choosing physics, as well as trying to provide evidence for my interest - physics books I've read and what they showed me about the subject, physics-related things that piqued my interest, like the astronomy club I was in at my school. I think that's the most important thing to convey - why you chose this subject out of all the others you could have applied for. If you can demonstrate that, you're someone the university should definitely consider. The unrelated stuff (like my grade 8 guitar) is relegated to a shorter paragraph at the end.
My first draft was very, very rough. It had about 5000 characters, it had unfinished sentences, repeated statements and was very clunky. Rather than trying to fix a pile of ****, I just went and typed up a new one, with the two texts side by side on my laptop. That took me an hour and a half, to get one that occupied 44 lines in the UCAS and about 3440 characters (something like that).
Sounds messy but I think that's the way to go. Start by just writing about anything that could possibly go in.
As for looking at other personal statements, like the ones uploaded on TSR - don't read them before you've finished your draft. They do a good job at making yours feel inadequate. That said, I think this one that I came across is interesting, because it's quite a barebones personal statement - they only talked about their interest in the subject, nothing else, no books or work experience, and still got an offer from Cambridge.
Good luck!
Original post by Samakatun
Can I get a tag too please?
I'm applying to a few of the same courses.
I'm applying to a few of the same courses.
Allllllrighty
Original post by Sinnoh
The UCAS deadline for Oxbridge is the 15th of October and I don't want to be worrying about it for a whole extra month. Also my school wants Oxbridge applicants to have their final draft in by the start of term. But I'll be f***ed if I'm writing a whole one again from scratch.
Just FYI, you will hate your personal statement at first.
The whole thing (for me) has basically been about why I'm choosing physics, as well as trying to provide evidence for my interest - physics books I've read and what they showed me about the subject, physics-related things that piqued my interest, like the astronomy club I was in at my school. I think that's the most important thing to convey - why you chose this subject out of all the others you could have applied for. If you can demonstrate that, you're someone the university should definitely consider. The unrelated stuff (like my grade 8 guitar) is relegated to a shorter paragraph at the end.
My first draft was very, very rough. It had about 5000 characters, it had unfinished sentences, repeated statements and was very clunky. Rather than trying to fix a pile of ****, I just went and typed up a new one, with the two texts side by side on my laptop. That took me an hour and a half, to get one that occupied 44 lines in the UCAS and about 3440 characters (something like that).
Sounds messy but I think that's the way to go. Start by just writing about anything that could possibly go in.
As for looking at other personal statements, like the ones uploaded on TSR - don't read them before you've finished your draft. They do a good job at making yours feel inadequate. That said, I think this one that I came across is interesting, because it's quite a barebones personal statement - they only talked about their interest in the subject, nothing else, no books or work experience, and still got an offer from Cambridge.
Good luck!
Just FYI, you will hate your personal statement at first.
The whole thing (for me) has basically been about why I'm choosing physics, as well as trying to provide evidence for my interest - physics books I've read and what they showed me about the subject, physics-related things that piqued my interest, like the astronomy club I was in at my school. I think that's the most important thing to convey - why you chose this subject out of all the others you could have applied for. If you can demonstrate that, you're someone the university should definitely consider. The unrelated stuff (like my grade 8 guitar) is relegated to a shorter paragraph at the end.
My first draft was very, very rough. It had about 5000 characters, it had unfinished sentences, repeated statements and was very clunky. Rather than trying to fix a pile of ****, I just went and typed up a new one, with the two texts side by side on my laptop. That took me an hour and a half, to get one that occupied 44 lines in the UCAS and about 3440 characters (something like that).
Sounds messy but I think that's the way to go. Start by just writing about anything that could possibly go in.
As for looking at other personal statements, like the ones uploaded on TSR - don't read them before you've finished your draft. They do a good job at making yours feel inadequate. That said, I think this one that I came across is interesting, because it's quite a barebones personal statement - they only talked about their interest in the subject, nothing else, no books or work experience, and still got an offer from Cambridge.
Good luck!
Wow!
Thank you!
I'll take a look at the link
Thank you!
Update 3 - "somehow still weekly"
Oh boy it has begun. But I'll get to that later.
Well on Sunday the 2nd I decided to do a bit of French from my textbook, and it's just horrible. So boring
. I could only do one set of exercises from the unit before I got fed up.
So what does Sinnoh do when he wants to be productive but doesn't want to do the boring kind of work? He does maths, of course.
I decided to retry last year's senior maths challenge. I don't know how long I spent (an hour?) but I got bored by question 17. That said I'm very confident that all my answers were correct, which would mean I could get a gold if I do that well this year. But yeah, I impressed myself. Some of the questions I remember being completely lost on and not finding them at all bad this time around. Basically, I want to get a gold. This is the last maths challenge I'm doing and I've never gotten a gold (even though I got into the Kangaroo in year 9). Part of me wants to get into the Olympiad because I feel a little insecure on my own mathematical ability (doing well in A-level is entirely different to doing well in UKMT) and part of me doesn't because it's 6 stupid-hard questions and more than 3 hours long and it'll be too late to mention on my uni application.
That evening I did my French homework - I watched the film La Haine. I actually recommend it. It's really good . Subtitles are an absolute must, I don't know Parisian slang.
Monday the 3rd the only work I did was a specimen NSAA paper for Cambridge. Timed myself too and ran out of time on the second question of the third section (advanced maths and physics), after fully completing the first two (maths and physics). Apparently the average mark is 50-60% though, so this could be good.
Tuesday the 4th was the day I cleaned my desk (and that is a Gameboy Advance SP on the right there), tried and failed to do any French and did 40 minutes or so of physics from my CGP book. I don't get the hype. It's just practice questions. Our timetables were available for 40 minutes that evening and I found out that I'll be missing a full no-free-period day of school to go to Churchill College in Cambridge on the 21st. Also started reading The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, which is also quite good so far.
Wednesday the 5th was the day that school started but lessons didn't. It was an induction day which seemed pretty pointless considering most of us had been at the school for 4 years now. But there were free bacon rolls in the 6th form centre (of which I had 1 and a half before feeling a bit sick). Then we had a 40 minute talk on study skills which was actually kind of interesting. David Didau gave some advice on how much to stagger your revision: for a test 1 week away, review every 2 days. If it's one month away, review every week. 2 months, review every 2 weeks, 6 months, review every 3 weeks, 1 year, review every 4 weeks. The rate at which you forget decreases every time you re-study.
Buuut there's also an inversely proportional relationship between how confident someone is about a test and how well they do. This is because if you study something once and then only test yourself, you find more areas where you're not sure what you know, whereas if you're just re-reading and re-studying, you think you know a lot more than you do. So you go in confident and come out f**ked. But it's a nice explanation as to why people stress so much before getting good results.
Thursday saw my first lessons of the year for maths and physics. Also the first further maths I have been taught at A-level. Did pretty much the entire chapter 1 in Edexcel Further Core Pure maths book 1, revised circular motion in physics (so nothing new there), started doing gravitational fields with another teacher. Glad to be back in a routine, to be honest. I had a sudden specific moment of happiness when I was walking out of the 6th form centre to my first lesson holding my 50p cup of hot chocolate. I also set up a personal statement reviewing group chat for my friends and locked myself out of my UCAS account because I forgot the password (it's stored on Dashlane so I never bothered to remember). Also been talking with people about writing for the school history magazine.
Errr, yeah that's it really. I'm quite happy right now.
Question of the week:
Supposing you were dropped from an aeroplane really high up, and below you there was a huge slope that started out vertical and very very gradually levelled out - could you run down it after reaching terminal velocity and not die?
I was also thinking of including a "Song of the week" yesterday while I was on the toilet but can't think of anything good. So just enjoy this lyrical masterpiece, k?
Oh yeah, tags. Not forgetting this time. Say if you want out.
Oh boy it has begun. But I'll get to that later.
Well on Sunday the 2nd I decided to do a bit of French from my textbook, and it's just horrible. So boring
. I could only do one set of exercises from the unit before I got fed up.So what does Sinnoh do when he wants to be productive but doesn't want to do the boring kind of work? He does maths, of course.
I decided to retry last year's senior maths challenge. I don't know how long I spent (an hour?) but I got bored by question 17. That said I'm very confident that all my answers were correct, which would mean I could get a gold if I do that well this year. But yeah, I impressed myself. Some of the questions I remember being completely lost on and not finding them at all bad this time around. Basically, I want to get a gold. This is the last maths challenge I'm doing and I've never gotten a gold (even though I got into the Kangaroo in year 9). Part of me wants to get into the Olympiad because I feel a little insecure on my own mathematical ability (doing well in A-level is entirely different to doing well in UKMT) and part of me doesn't because it's 6 stupid-hard questions and more than 3 hours long and it'll be too late to mention on my uni application.
That evening I did my French homework - I watched the film La Haine. I actually recommend it. It's really good . Subtitles are an absolute must, I don't know Parisian slang.
Monday the 3rd the only work I did was a specimen NSAA paper for Cambridge. Timed myself too and ran out of time on the second question of the third section (advanced maths and physics), after fully completing the first two (maths and physics). Apparently the average mark is 50-60% though, so this could be good.
Tuesday the 4th was the day I cleaned my desk (and that is a Gameboy Advance SP on the right there), tried and failed to do any French and did 40 minutes or so of physics from my CGP book. I don't get the hype. It's just practice questions. Our timetables were available for 40 minutes that evening and I found out that I'll be missing a full no-free-period day of school to go to Churchill College in Cambridge on the 21st. Also started reading The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, which is also quite good so far.
Wednesday the 5th was the day that school started but lessons didn't. It was an induction day which seemed pretty pointless considering most of us had been at the school for 4 years now. But there were free bacon rolls in the 6th form centre (of which I had 1 and a half before feeling a bit sick). Then we had a 40 minute talk on study skills which was actually kind of interesting. David Didau gave some advice on how much to stagger your revision: for a test 1 week away, review every 2 days. If it's one month away, review every week. 2 months, review every 2 weeks, 6 months, review every 3 weeks, 1 year, review every 4 weeks. The rate at which you forget decreases every time you re-study.
Buuut there's also an inversely proportional relationship between how confident someone is about a test and how well they do. This is because if you study something once and then only test yourself, you find more areas where you're not sure what you know, whereas if you're just re-reading and re-studying, you think you know a lot more than you do. So you go in confident and come out f**ked. But it's a nice explanation as to why people stress so much before getting good results.
Thursday saw my first lessons of the year for maths and physics. Also the first further maths I have been taught at A-level. Did pretty much the entire chapter 1 in Edexcel Further Core Pure maths book 1, revised circular motion in physics (so nothing new there), started doing gravitational fields with another teacher. Glad to be back in a routine, to be honest. I had a sudden specific moment of happiness when I was walking out of the 6th form centre to my first lesson holding my 50p cup of hot chocolate. I also set up a personal statement reviewing group chat for my friends and locked myself out of my UCAS account because I forgot the password (it's stored on Dashlane so I never bothered to remember). Also been talking with people about writing for the school history magazine.
Errr, yeah that's it really. I'm quite happy right now.
Question of the week:
Supposing you were dropped from an aeroplane really high up, and below you there was a huge slope that started out vertical and very very gradually levelled out - could you run down it after reaching terminal velocity and not die?
I was also thinking of including a "Song of the week" yesterday while I was on the toilet but can't think of anything good. So just enjoy this lyrical masterpiece, k?
Oh yeah, tags. Not forgetting this time. Say if you want out.
Spoiler
Original post by Sinnoh
Update 3 - "somehow still weekly"
Oh boy it has begun. But I'll get to that later.
Well on Sunday the 2nd I decided to do a bit of French from my textbook, and it's just horrible. So boring. I could only do one set of exercises from the unit before I got fed up.
So what does Sinnoh do when he wants to be productive but doesn't want to do the boring kind of work? He does maths, of course.
I decided to retry last year's senior maths challenge. I don't know how long I spent (an hour?) but I got bored by question 17. That said I'm very confident that all my answers were correct, which would mean I could get a gold if I do that well this year. But yeah, I impressed myself. Some of the questions I remember being completely lost on and not finding them at all bad this time around. Basically, I want to get a gold. This is the last maths challenge I'm doing and I've never gotten a gold (even though I got into the Kangaroo in year 9). Part of me wants to get into the Olympiad because I feel a little insecure on my own mathematical ability (doing well in A-level is entirely different to doing well in UKMT) and part of me doesn't because it's 6 stupid-hard questions and more than 3 hours long and it'll be too late to mention on my uni application.
That evening I did my French homework - I watched the film La Haine. I actually recommend it. It's really good . Subtitles are an absolute must, I don't know Parisian slang.
Monday the 3rd the only work I did was a specimen NSAA paper for Cambridge. Timed myself too and ran out of time on the second question of the third section (advanced maths and physics), after fully completing the first two (maths and physics). Apparently the average mark is 50-60% though, so this could be good.
Tuesday the 4th was the day I cleaned my desk (and that is a Gameboy Advance SP on the right there), tried and failed to do any French and did 40 minutes or so of physics from my CGP book. I don't get the hype. It's just practice questions. Our timetables were available for 40 minutes that evening and I found out that I'll be missing a full no-free-period day of school to go to Churchill College in Cambridge on the 21st. Also started reading The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, which is also quite good so far.
Wednesday the 5th was the day that school started but lessons didn't. It was an induction day which seemed pretty pointless considering most of us had been at the school for 4 years now. But there were free bacon rolls in the 6th form centre (of which I had 1 and a half before feeling a bit sick). Then we had a 40 minute talk on study skills which was actually kind of interesting. David Didau gave some advice on how much to stagger your revision: for a test 1 week away, review every 2 days. If it's one month away, review every week. 2 months, review every 2 weeks, 6 months, review every 3 weeks, 1 year, review every 4 weeks. The rate at which you forget decreases every time you re-study.
Buuut there's also an inversely proportional relationship between how confident someone is about a test and how well they do. This is because if you study something once and then only test yourself, you find more areas where you're not sure what you know, whereas if you're just re-reading and re-studying, you think you know a lot more than you do. So you go in confident and come out f**ked. But it's a nice explanation as to why people stress so much before getting good results.
Thursday saw my first lessons of the year for maths and physics. Also the first further maths I have been taught at A-level. Did pretty much the entire chapter 1 in Edexcel Further Core Pure maths book 1, revised circular motion in physics (so nothing new there), started doing gravitational fields with another teacher. Glad to be back in a routine, to be honest. I had a sudden specific moment of happiness when I was walking out of the 6th form centre to my first lesson holding my 50p cup of hot chocolate. I also set up a personal statement reviewing group chat for my friends and locked myself out of my UCAS account because I forgot the password (it's stored on Dashlane so I never bothered to remember). Also been talking with people about writing for the school history magazine.
Errr, yeah that's it really. I'm quite happy right now.
Question of the week:
Supposing you were dropped from an aeroplane really high up, and below you there was a huge slope that started out vertical and very very gradually levelled out - could you run down it after reaching terminal velocity and not die?
I was also thinking of including a "Song of the week" yesterday while I was on the toilet but can't think of anything good. So just enjoy this lyrical masterpiece, k?
Oh yeah, tags. Not forgetting this time. Say if you want out.
Oh boy it has begun. But I'll get to that later.
Well on Sunday the 2nd I decided to do a bit of French from my textbook, and it's just horrible. So boring
. I could only do one set of exercises from the unit before I got fed up.So what does Sinnoh do when he wants to be productive but doesn't want to do the boring kind of work? He does maths, of course.
I decided to retry last year's senior maths challenge. I don't know how long I spent (an hour?) but I got bored by question 17. That said I'm very confident that all my answers were correct, which would mean I could get a gold if I do that well this year. But yeah, I impressed myself. Some of the questions I remember being completely lost on and not finding them at all bad this time around. Basically, I want to get a gold. This is the last maths challenge I'm doing and I've never gotten a gold (even though I got into the Kangaroo in year 9). Part of me wants to get into the Olympiad because I feel a little insecure on my own mathematical ability (doing well in A-level is entirely different to doing well in UKMT) and part of me doesn't because it's 6 stupid-hard questions and more than 3 hours long and it'll be too late to mention on my uni application.
That evening I did my French homework - I watched the film La Haine. I actually recommend it. It's really good . Subtitles are an absolute must, I don't know Parisian slang.
Monday the 3rd the only work I did was a specimen NSAA paper for Cambridge. Timed myself too and ran out of time on the second question of the third section (advanced maths and physics), after fully completing the first two (maths and physics). Apparently the average mark is 50-60% though, so this could be good.
Tuesday the 4th was the day I cleaned my desk (and that is a Gameboy Advance SP on the right there), tried and failed to do any French and did 40 minutes or so of physics from my CGP book. I don't get the hype. It's just practice questions. Our timetables were available for 40 minutes that evening and I found out that I'll be missing a full no-free-period day of school to go to Churchill College in Cambridge on the 21st. Also started reading The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, which is also quite good so far.
Wednesday the 5th was the day that school started but lessons didn't. It was an induction day which seemed pretty pointless considering most of us had been at the school for 4 years now. But there were free bacon rolls in the 6th form centre (of which I had 1 and a half before feeling a bit sick). Then we had a 40 minute talk on study skills which was actually kind of interesting. David Didau gave some advice on how much to stagger your revision: for a test 1 week away, review every 2 days. If it's one month away, review every week. 2 months, review every 2 weeks, 6 months, review every 3 weeks, 1 year, review every 4 weeks. The rate at which you forget decreases every time you re-study.
Buuut there's also an inversely proportional relationship between how confident someone is about a test and how well they do. This is because if you study something once and then only test yourself, you find more areas where you're not sure what you know, whereas if you're just re-reading and re-studying, you think you know a lot more than you do. So you go in confident and come out f**ked. But it's a nice explanation as to why people stress so much before getting good results.
Thursday saw my first lessons of the year for maths and physics. Also the first further maths I have been taught at A-level. Did pretty much the entire chapter 1 in Edexcel Further Core Pure maths book 1, revised circular motion in physics (so nothing new there), started doing gravitational fields with another teacher. Glad to be back in a routine, to be honest. I had a sudden specific moment of happiness when I was walking out of the 6th form centre to my first lesson holding my 50p cup of hot chocolate. I also set up a personal statement reviewing group chat for my friends and locked myself out of my UCAS account because I forgot the password (it's stored on Dashlane so I never bothered to remember). Also been talking with people about writing for the school history magazine.
Errr, yeah that's it really. I'm quite happy right now.
Question of the week:
Supposing you were dropped from an aeroplane really high up, and below you there was a huge slope that started out vertical and very very gradually levelled out - could you run down it after reaching terminal velocity and not die?
I was also thinking of including a "Song of the week" yesterday while I was on the toilet but can't think of anything good. So just enjoy this lyrical masterpiece, k?
Oh yeah, tags. Not forgetting this time. Say if you want out.
Spoiler
Can I be tagged please?! Not sure if I already asked lol
Great post !
what kinda question is that
Original post by Ariel2611
Can I be tagged please?! Not sure if I already asked lol
Great post !
Great post !
Whoops. You totally did ask.
Original post by SarcAndSpark
@Sinnoh Sounds like a pretty good week!
For your terminal velocity question are we assuming the person hasn't broken their legs as they hit the slope? If so, I think it would be theoretically possible to survive- people have survived all sorts of crazy falls, but your chances of dying would be very high.
For your terminal velocity question are we assuming the person hasn't broken their legs as they hit the slope? If so, I think it would be theoretically possible to survive- people have survived all sorts of crazy falls, but your chances of dying would be very high.
Like, the first step they would take would be incredibly light, barely touching the slope
Maths 
Good luck with the UKMT this year! I'm aiming for gold this year as well
(can't participate in the Olympiad even if I do get the marks 
cos I'm not in the UK, so I apparently can't do that)
I need to start NSAA prep
should have started ages ago...
Desk cleaning
you find all sorts of stuff when you do that. I'm sure there are some spiders living in my desk (and I just cleaned it last week! 
)
I totally agree: Induction days are stupid, especially for Year 12/13s
hope you don't stay locked out of UCAS 
AOTW: dunno. assuming your legs don't break on impact, i guess that yes, you can run down the slope. I'm thinking it looks like a positive 1/x graph or something like that. (maybe not that steep
)
Good luck with the UKMT this year! I'm aiming for gold this year as well
(can't participate in the Olympiad even if I do get the marks cos I'm not in the UK, so I apparently can't do that)I need to start NSAA prep
should have started ages ago...Desk cleaning
you find all sorts of stuff when you do that. I'm sure there are some spiders living in my desk (and I just cleaned it last week! )I totally agree: Induction days are stupid, especially for Year 12/13s
hope you don't stay locked out of UCAS AOTW: dunno. assuming your legs don't break on impact, i guess that yes, you can run down the slope. I'm thinking it looks like a positive 1/x graph or something like that. (maybe not that steep
)Original post by nyxnko_
Maths
Good luck with the UKMT this year! I'm aiming for gold this year as well (can't participate in the Olympiad even if I do get the marks cos I'm not in the UK, so I apparently can't do that)
I need to start NSAA prep should have started ages ago...
Desk cleaning you find all sorts of stuff when you do that. I'm sure there are some spiders living in my desk (and I just cleaned it last week! )
I totally agree: Induction days are stupid, especially for Year 12/13s
hope you don't stay locked out of UCAS
AOTW: dunno. assuming your legs don't break on impact, i guess that yes, you can run down the slope. I'm thinking it looks like a positive 1/x graph or something like that. (maybe not that steep)
Good luck with the UKMT this year! I'm aiming for gold this year as well
(can't participate in the Olympiad even if I do get the marks cos I'm not in the UK, so I apparently can't do that)I need to start NSAA prep
should have started ages ago...Desk cleaning
you find all sorts of stuff when you do that. I'm sure there are some spiders living in my desk (and I just cleaned it last week! )I totally agree: Induction days are stupid, especially for Year 12/13s
hope you don't stay locked out of UCAS AOTW: dunno. assuming your legs don't break on impact, i guess that yes, you can run down the slope. I'm thinking it looks like a positive 1/x graph or something like that. (maybe not that steep
)I think technically I wasn't allowed to participate in the olympiad the past few years either because I wasn't a UK national because I had no UK passport but nobody at all knew
... and I never got in anyway
Think of the slope as being like the lower-right quarter of a circle, but huge.
Original post by SarcAndSpark
Is this on earth?
Is this one of those physics questions where we don't actually consider reality
Is this one of those physics questions where we don't actually consider reality
If you just graze the slope as it's vertical, and you do that lots of times, you're transferring your kinetic energy on to it through friction and maybe eventually...
Also yes we cant consider the engineering reality because you'd need a pretty damn big slope.
Original post by SarcAndSpark
I'm also considering the biological realities of this- you might die from the altitude you'd need to fall from alone. If you were high enough up you might die before you even hit the slope
I just did some very very rough calculations, assuming one joule of energy was lost with each step, on average. Terminal velocity for a 60kg person is 53.5 m/s, and assuming they want to slow down to 4m/s by running, they'd need to run 65km assuming an average stepping distance of 0.762m (probably much higher than that in this case), which would necessitate a circle-quarter with a 40km radius
Original post by SarcAndSpark
You've clearly put a lot of thought into this but if you wanted an answer that specific you probably need to rephrase your question
but if you wanted an answer that specific you probably need to rephrase your question I was just curious about what you said with the altitude. You'd absolutely asphyxiate at that height
Original post by SarcAndSpark
Oh right
So are we saying the answer is no because you'd die before you ever hit the slope
So are we saying the answer is no because you'd die before you ever hit the slope
Yeah, we have to ignore the biological realities. Or provide the victim with an oxygen tank.
Original post by Sinnoh
I think technically I wasn't allowed to participate in the olympiad the past few years either because I wasn't a UK national because I had no UK passport but nobody at all knew
... and I never got in anyway
Think of the slope as being like the lower-right quarter of a circle, but huge.
... and I never got in anyway
Think of the slope as being like the lower-right quarter of a circle, but huge.
at least if you did get in, you could still participate (maybe this year, we'll both be able to do it 
)okay. let me sleep on it.
"What else do I have to say" - Update #4
Alright here's what happened this week. Some of it is more interesting than other parts. As you would reasonably guess.
Friday 7/9 was our school's "Higher Education Day"! Because my school prides itself on sending as many students as possible to uni, regardless of course or place, just so clueless parents think that makes it a good thing to spend money on.
Anyway, I don't think anyone in the country, apart from the rest of my year group, had a less interesting or useful talk than I did on that day. There's a staff member in charge of just higher education - you'd think that would be really useful, but no. The one talent where she excels at is in talking for 45 minutes without saying anything noteworthy, or anything she hadn't already told us. For 45 f***ing minutes.
She even went through the personal statement powerpoint she already gave us in the summer. Then some other guy who was apparently a specialist in this sort of thing told us other things, the only two things I remember about him is that he said "hyperbole" incorrectly (he pronounces it hyper-bowl) and he roasted the sh*t out of Bolton.
What else - another talk for Oxbridge applicants, very little useful info there either although I found out that there's 17 of us considering Oxbridge. Only one other person going for Cambridge Nat Sci. Lots of economics and humanities.
Most importantly, I got my predicted grade for history - A*! 
Hopefully I send my application off before the coursework lowers it...
Saturday 8/9 I went with two friends to Southampton for the open day. Took a campus tour, went to a physics talk - the courses look amazing, Physics with space science is like the ideal course
but Cambridge and Imperial are still my top 2 by a long way. But, I'll probably put it as my insurance. Got to edit the OP too. Toured around the physics department, chatted with students - hardly anyone takes the space science course so the teaching becomes pretty good,i it's like 4 on 1. Had a £5 meal "deal" that I got from Whistlestop at Waterloo station (disgustingly expensive) and a chicken jumbalaya at Southampton that cost £5.50. Then we got Nando's back in London so yeah my debit card is feeling the hurt.
Sunday 9/9 I literally have no clue what happened on that day.
Monday 10/9 The most notable thing was starting the Russia topic for history. One of my history teachers has changed but this one's f***ing great. There's 7 of us, we're just sat around a few tables in the middle of the room, he sits opposite us and it's clear he loves this topic.
Then I found out there's only one other person in our year doing their history coursework on Russia
. And I'm still undecided on the question to do.
Tuesday 11/9 finally had a lesson with our stats teacher (missed the 1st one because of that useless Oxbridge talk). It's alright. Might get bad later on, Poisson distribution's alright.
Wednesday 12/9 I decided to abstain from all weekly Games this term so I could do some work. How times have changed. I got early access to the further mechanics textbook to be as prepared as I can be for the Cambridge NSAA (I'll have to do the advanced maths and physics section).
Side note, since school has started I've been actually really lazy. Because I'm back at school I'm doing all my academic work at school and doing nothing whatsoever at home.
So this time I decided to change that habit and I made a plan for the timed essay I had on Thursday - "Assess the importance of individual women campaigners in the achievement of greater rights for women in the years 1865-1992". Women's rights has been an interesting topic but I'm getting a bit tired of it now. Labour and trade union rights is next.
Now, posting pictures of your work is apparently a GYG-esque thing to do so here's my essay plan 30% complete.
Thursday 13/9 I had that essay. Now, every time I have a test, I walk out feeling completely neutral. I have no idea how it went. I might have gotten 15/25, I might have gotten full marks, I don't know.
Unless I know I did ****, like the stats and mechanics test earlier this year where I got 50%. Then I walk out furious with myself.
I'm also joining a guitar ensemble set up by my guitar teacher (outside school). Went to the sort of induction thing which was a bit of a waste of time because we haven't been separated according to ability yet.
Oh, and I checked what time I need to leave for the open day at Birmingham on Saturday. I found out I booked the tickets leaving at f**king 07:23 from London Euston. I hate past me so much, he's an inconsiderate ****.
Decided to add some stuff because I remembered this is a competition.
Highlight of the week: When I accidentally said in a civil rights history lesson that early campaigners for women suffrage in the USA wanted the vote so they could use it to legalise slavery. I've never baffled a classroom that hard before. I meant 'abolish'.
Song of the week: We Didn't Start The Fire by Billy Joel (it's been stuck in my head all week and also contains the title for this update)
people wot wanted a little notification about this:
Alright here's what happened this week. Some of it is more interesting than other parts. As you would reasonably guess.
Friday 7/9 was our school's "Higher Education Day"! Because my school prides itself on sending as many students as possible to uni, regardless of course or place, just so clueless parents think that makes it a good thing to spend money on.
Anyway, I don't think anyone in the country, apart from the rest of my year group, had a less interesting or useful talk than I did on that day. There's a staff member in charge of just higher education - you'd think that would be really useful, but no. The one talent where she excels at is in talking for 45 minutes without saying anything noteworthy, or anything she hadn't already told us. For 45 f***ing minutes.
She even went through the personal statement powerpoint she already gave us in the summer. Then some other guy who was apparently a specialist in this sort of thing told us other things, the only two things I remember about him is that he said "hyperbole" incorrectly (he pronounces it hyper-bowl) and he roasted the sh*t out of Bolton.What else - another talk for Oxbridge applicants, very little useful info there either although I found out that there's 17 of us considering Oxbridge. Only one other person going for Cambridge Nat Sci. Lots of economics and humanities.
Most importantly, I got my predicted grade for history - A*!
Hopefully I send my application off before the coursework lowers it...Saturday 8/9 I went with two friends to Southampton for the open day. Took a campus tour, went to a physics talk - the courses look amazing, Physics with space science is like the ideal course
but Cambridge and Imperial are still my top 2 by a long way. But, I'll probably put it as my insurance. Got to edit the OP too. Toured around the physics department, chatted with students - hardly anyone takes the space science course so the teaching becomes pretty good,i it's like 4 on 1. Had a £5 meal "deal" that I got from Whistlestop at Waterloo station (disgustingly expensive) and a chicken jumbalaya at Southampton that cost £5.50. Then we got Nando's back in London so yeah my debit card is feeling the hurt.Sunday 9/9 I literally have no clue what happened on that day.
Monday 10/9 The most notable thing was starting the Russia topic for history. One of my history teachers has changed but this one's f***ing great. There's 7 of us, we're just sat around a few tables in the middle of the room, he sits opposite us and it's clear he loves this topic.
Then I found out there's only one other person in our year doing their history coursework on Russia
. And I'm still undecided on the question to do.Tuesday 11/9 finally had a lesson with our stats teacher (missed the 1st one because of that useless Oxbridge talk). It's alright. Might get bad later on, Poisson distribution's alright.
Wednesday 12/9 I decided to abstain from all weekly Games this term so I could do some work. How times have changed. I got early access to the further mechanics textbook to be as prepared as I can be for the Cambridge NSAA (I'll have to do the advanced maths and physics section).
Side note, since school has started I've been actually really lazy. Because I'm back at school I'm doing all my academic work at school and doing nothing whatsoever at home.
So this time I decided to change that habit and I made a plan for the timed essay I had on Thursday - "Assess the importance of individual women campaigners in the achievement of greater rights for women in the years 1865-1992". Women's rights has been an interesting topic but I'm getting a bit tired of it now. Labour and trade union rights is next.
Now, posting pictures of your work is apparently a GYG-esque thing to do so here's my essay plan 30% complete.
Thursday 13/9 I had that essay. Now, every time I have a test, I walk out feeling completely neutral. I have no idea how it went. I might have gotten 15/25, I might have gotten full marks, I don't know.
Unless I know I did ****, like the stats and mechanics test earlier this year where I got 50%. Then I walk out furious with myself.
I'm also joining a guitar ensemble set up by my guitar teacher (outside school). Went to the sort of induction thing which was a bit of a waste of time because we haven't been separated according to ability yet.
Oh, and I checked what time I need to leave for the open day at Birmingham on Saturday. I found out I booked the tickets leaving at f**king 07:23 from London Euston. I hate past me so much, he's an inconsiderate ****.
Decided to add some stuff because I remembered this is a competition.
Highlight of the week: When I accidentally said in a civil rights history lesson that early campaigners for women suffrage in the USA wanted the vote so they could use it to legalise slavery. I've never baffled a classroom that hard before. I meant 'abolish'.
Song of the week: We Didn't Start The Fire by Billy Joel (it's been stuck in my head all week and also contains the title for this update)
people wot wanted a little notification about this:
Spoiler
(edited 5 years ago)
Oh yeah and something else I totally forgot about that I should have mentioned-
Had first meeting with the history magazine group, we just talked about possible articles to write. It was fun and useful, I've got a much better idea for what to write. I wanted to make it on the changing motivations for space exploration (I said I wrote about that on my PS - that'll have to change), but now I think it'll be about how the USA and USSR went from competing to having two astronauts shake hands in space. It's much easier to write an article about that, it has more of an edge. The teacher in charge suggested the tagline "Competing to co-operation" - I think. Can't remember!!
Had first meeting with the history magazine group, we just talked about possible articles to write. It was fun and useful, I've got a much better idea for what to write. I wanted to make it on the changing motivations for space exploration (I said I wrote about that on my PS - that'll have to change), but now I think it'll be about how the USA and USSR went from competing to having two astronauts shake hands in space. It's much easier to write an article about that, it has more of an edge. The teacher in charge suggested the tagline "Competing to co-operation" - I think. Can't remember!!
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