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Successful Cambridge Applicants Chat - 2006

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If honest Juneau i was really really shocked - you guys really should have won - i feel for you!!

me xx
Reply 3321
Avatar for tctc
tctc
Juneau
As far as I know A levels aren't competitive i.e. you could get 99/100 but if everyone else got 100/100 you still wouldn't get an A, so I don't think they solely use the normal distribution when determining grades but I could be wrong.


Nope it is plotted on the normal distrubution. With more statistics that i would understand due to my hatred of the subject. but it was explained to me once buy a senior examiner/offsted reporter as he though i had a love for statistics.... When i was trying to explain mechanics is >.


Anyhow got some chemistry to do now... bye bye
It must be more complicated than that, otherwise the percentage getting an A would be unlikely to rise to ~40%, which I think it does in some subjects.
LAst exam done, not as safe as you lot with UMS though so maybe got B overall in one. all i can do is wait now! (and pray)
yipee, no more exams this year!! Gap Year starts now! Have to finish dress making for friday, wop de doo.

I'm kind of wishing i was doing AEA's now, but oh well, for when i miss my grades.

how are people spending the time between the end of exams and august the 17th?
Aired
Well you need 480/600 UMS to get an A

I had 372 after my January exam, and there are 210 UMS points available in the summer exams, so I need [ (480-372)/210 ] x 100 = 51% which is a D


Ok...sorry to still be dumb - but how did u work out what percentages equal which grade?? Thanks for this !!

xx
crazynutter
yipee, no more exams this year!! Gap Year starts now! Have to finish dress making for friday, wop de doo.

I'm kind of wishing i was doing AEA's now, but oh well, for when i miss my grades.

how are people spending the time between the end of exams and august the 17th?

I plan to do nothing for the next two weeks except my friend is coming from sweden so il probably do something:biggrin: . Then im going on holiday for three weeks, then i might get a job :cool:

Is everyone here very safe on UMS marks? I need to get A's this year to get A's over all which is why im panicking.
hmm, Im at school for the last time today. I might go 'borrow' some books from the library in a minute...
I'm very safe in terms of UMS for sciences, but have only 2 f.maths modules already so i was working for straight A's hopefully, but will be fine with 2 A's and 2 B's.

We have to go back into school for the last couple of days of term for prize giving (and i have to turn up because i've been awarded something) and beer money, we acually get a tenner for going to school that day so it's almost worth it.

And school have previously thrented my friend with legal action for not returning library books, the staff really need to get a life!
Hey everyone!

College applied to: Fitz - pooled to Robinson (on 1st day of pool - get in!)
Course: Maths
Conditions: AAA excluding German (so that'll be Maths, Further Maths and Computing) and Grade 1 in both STEP II and III.
Deferred entry? No
Nationality: British? English? Who knows?
Where are you living right now: Nottingham
A few details about yourself: I am very doubtful about getting the STEP grades.

To clarify about marking the exams: this is how they do it (not sure if this is just in Maths or all exams):

1. Papers marked to mark scheme.
2. Examiners get together, and select papers submitted by A standard, C standard and E standard candidates. They look at what marks they got, and adjust the grade boundaries accordingly, using "interpolation" to get B and D grade boundaries. So for a hard exam, 77/100 might be the A boundary, instead of 80. When they adjust to the UMS however, they take the NEW score, so a candidate who only scored 77/100 would be recorded as having scored 80/100. This is why if it says you scored 100 (or the equivalent, such as 120, depending on the UMS total for subject's modules) it DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN YOU MADE NO MISTAKES; they could have just moved the marks up. However, if you really did get 100% in the exam, they can't move it down, however "easy" the exam was.

The reason for this complicated system is so exam scores can be compared between years, and the January and June sessions. It wouldn't be fair if an A grade candidate sat a hard exam in January and got a B, whereas a B grade candidate sitting the same exam in June got an A cos the exam was easier.

So there you go! I think that's all pretty much correct. Our Maths teachers go on about this a lot, cos one of them is an OCR examiner.

Hope that made it a bit clearer! :biggrin:
-x- Lici
Ok...sorry to still be dumb - but how did u work out what percentages equal which grade?? Thanks for this !!

xx


80%=A 70%=B and you get the idea!!

(remember raw marks are usually at least 5% less(ie you dont need 80% of the total marks in the exam to get 80% UMS) than these so you can do better than you expect)

......and what dragon girl said above lol
Reply 3331
Avatar for sinkme
sinkme
sigh sigh
i can't get over the world cup either
and i'm dutch so it's even worse!!
:-(
well at least we wrote history with the most red cards ever! :s-smilie:
What you all have to remember is that A level grades fluctuate depending on how badly the rest of the country did. And plus, Cambridge colleges at least don't care that much about the grade. I mean, they care, but if you miss a grade, they'll think very carefully before letting you go because you've already proved how motivated/smart you are. And just forget about them til' August anyway: there's nothing you can do.

Hope to see you all as Freshers next year, and if you're a Cantabrigian, I'll probably see you at the Fresher's Fair!!
I'm fairly safe on UMS for English and R.S, but I didn't have all my single maths modules done, let alone further, so I couldn't be complacent about that. And obviously there's no safety net for STEP.
Dragon Girl

Course: Maths


:cool: Hey Hey

Good Luck with the STEP there, 1,1 is as hard as it's gonna get, though if you get 2,1 or 1,2 (which is my offer along with some others) , you would be very unfortunate for Robinson not to take you.
lol, I'm not safe with my UMS, am a renegade....Chemistry might actually be right on the dot 480, will be close either side. Thank god for Physics (even though that won't be too far over, should still be over)
i'm feelling guilty about not working even though i don't have any work to do... study leave really has mashed my brain!
KAISER_MOLE
lol, I'm not safe with my UMS, am a renegade....Chemistry might actually be right on the dot 480, will be close either side. Thank god for Physics (even though that won't be too far over, should still be over)


Somehow I don't think they would drop you over a B in chemistry/physics if you made your STEP grades!
Reply 3338
Avatar for Aired
Aired
1
When is STEP?
Tell me about it - I don't know what to do with myself!

Keeping my brain exercised by doing a few STEP questions though . . .

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