UCL Medical School 2015 Entry

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Yeah I get what you mean, once you've started this course, for most people it's their whole life's career sorted.

Hahaha!

Ah so you decided! Where'd you go for? We've had to make enough decisions this year, I'm sure it can wait a little while :wink:

If I'm honest though, biomed genuinely seems interesting, especially how you can pick and choose the units after the first year. Then again I don't wanna have that feeling that if I see med students like, 'that should have been me'. I don't know if I'd feel that way but if I can help it, I want to avoid that possibility haha

Yeah I did, I decided to just go with Keele because it's got a nice little campus and it's not terribly far away :smile:

Plus it's the only uni I actually visited (whoops...)
Yeah exactly, like I'd enjoy learning it but I don't want to be bitter thinking about what I could have achieved... Oh well, I'll think about it if it comes to it haha :redface:

I'm just getting a little impatient, like when we're doing loads and trying our best to stay on top of things and stick to deadlines, not getting anything back feels a little anti-climatic haha

Reply 101

ako199

Original post by Joshi213

Haha at least you'd know that you like it there
Yeah, let's leave that decision for a while, I don't think anyone has got interviews yet so I'm sure it's still gonna be a little while until we hear anything :frown:

Definitely, feel like we're in a middle ground of almost finishing the application stuff pretty much, but not quite close enough to get any news about our med applications. Thing is, we're still doing more school work than most other people at school, even though we've got all this going on too, and without much slack, if any haha.

Oh my days I just got a message from a mate saying they can't wait to be done with all this and they can't wait until they're retired hahaha! Bit too far in the future I think...

Yeah I guess haha. And I agree about the school work, like none of my friends are doing medicine so they're still writing their statements now and they keep complaining about how they have so much to do... I swear, they haven't even the faintest clue...

And most teacher's aren't too understanding either haha, strange cause they know in the end our grades are going to be alright so if we're getting lower grades than usual now why does it matter? :redface:

Is your mate doing medicine too? Either way, I understand where they're coming from... It's like sometimes I'm all ambitious and I'm like yeah I want to do this whole medicine thing and sometimes I'm like I can't wait for all this to be over so I can just sit back and read books and paint and spend half my day in bed haha

Reply 102

ako199

Original post by Joshi213

Ah yeah I'm lucky then, I think most of my friends understand what we have to go through to do medicine, well maybe not quite understand haha!
Yeah most of my teachers probably have no clue too haha, completely agree! Surely they know that of all of their students, we're probably the ones that are gonna work the hardest when it comes down to it because if we don't get the grades we're not getting in no matter what...

Yes, of course! Hahaha secretly an old person inside by the sounds of things :wink:

I definitely can't wait until there's a time when I don't have to constantly think about upcoming exams or important things... but then I don't think that time may even come hahaha

There's a reason why I dropped physics, the circuits annoy me so much!

A quick physics question - I don't know if this is in your spec or what but when beta radiation is emitted, the electrons come from the neutron which then turns into a proton. How does this even happen. I vaguely remember that quarks make up protons and neutrons (and electrons?), so has this got something to do with it? This isn't on the spec, just a thought when I was revising some more physics... Did I mention that I hate circuits? :wink:

Also, why are gamma rays emitted due to alpha decay, but not due to beta decay?

Yeah I think by understand it's more relief that they don't have to do what we do! And exactly, if we're applying for medicine then we ourselves obviously want to do well, teachers don't really need to be chasing us up about it anymore!!

Haha maybe I am, learning new things about myself everyday :wink:

And I'm telling you, your friend was right, retirement is the only time you can truly relax!! Or, you know, next summer, which is slightly closer :tongue:

Aah ok this topic is a little strange to explain but I'll try my best. Basically protons and neutrons (but not electrons) consist of three quarks each. You get different types of quarks, including up quarks and down quarks. In this case the important difference between them is the charge- up quarks are positive and down quarks are negative.

A proton is made of 2 up quarks and 1 down quark, and neutrons are 2 down quarks and 1 up quark. During beta- decay, a down quark from one of the neutrons changes into an up quark (we weren't taught how exactly... so presumably magically), and so it has 2 up and 1 down quark making it a proton. But because the overall charge has changed from neutral to positive, among other things, you get an electron released to cancel out the charge (but how this electron is released is another kind of complicated concept which I could try and explain if you want but it'd introduce a lot of scary terms :redface:

)

It's a bit weird, sorry if that didn't make sense! Just ask if you didn't get it :smile:

And sorry I didn't really understand the radioactivity question, what exactly did you mean? I haven't heard of gamma radiation being emitted because of alpha :redface:

And don't worry, no one likes circuits haha, least of all A level physicists!

Reply 103

ako199

Original post by Joshi213

And that's exactly how I meant it haha! For sure, if we don't do something there's a reason for it - we've had more important things to do and you should at least try to understand that our uni application is very slightly more important than some stupid little homework haha

Ah see I know you better than you know you, and I don't even know you (that could get confusing considering how the BMAT has overworked our brains so much :wink:

). He may be, but that's a long time coming haha, I want to enjoy my working life :P I reckon the uni summers are gonna be quality though!

I remember these quark things! :wink:

That all makes sense, it's just that one idea about how the electron is released when you're not just taking it from the outer shells, but surely there's no random electron in every neutron haha.. is there?

Ah okay here's a picture from the assumed knowledge guide - in the equation for the alpha decay it shows gamma radiation being emitted (I vaguely remember this from GCSE, although it is highly likely that I'm making it up haha)

http://gyazo.com/68d8c6d0ac6a6c6506cc455a43f5474f

Okay, it's always good to know that nobody likes circuits!

Haha absolutely, I don't really care about insignificant class tests which don't really hold any meaning... :redface:

Genius you are, truly :wink:

Bmat is very much tiring my brain out... And yeah true, I actually can't wait to get started, even though it is a terribly dangerous way of thinking because I haven't even hear back from unis let alone got the place haha.

Ok so, attempt at a decent explanation for the random electron: after the up quark changes to a down quark, because you've change the charge, you get an intermediate particle called a W- boson. This is short-lived and quickly decays into an electron and an antineutrino (again we weren't taught how this happens, so the details of it are still a mystery). The basic reason for this is because when atoms decay it is necessary to conserve quantities such as charge and mass, and the electron allows this to happen. So this electron is sort of 'created', which is why they'll say the electron is from the nucleus, so you don't think it's one of the existing electrons from the orbitals that's emitted.

And with regards to the gamma ray, to be honest they don't normally show it like that... but this is my understanding of it: You know how photons are packets of light energy? So the electromagnetic spectrum can be thought to consist of photons of different energies and frequencies, with gamma photons having the highest energy. So when they say gamma ray they're basically saying high energy photons.
When alpha decay occurs, there is a loss of mass (this is due to the change in binding energy, which is kind of complicated) and so according to e=mc^2, when there is a loss of mass there will be an increase in energy. So when the daughter nucleus is produced, it is said to be in an excited state, and it may release its 'extra' energy in the form of photons. You don't get the same change in mass with beta so the energy doesn't change (as much... still happens but it's not as significant)

But to be honest I don't think you'll need all this, it's extremely easy to confuse yourself in physics haha. All of these are basically theories that can be disproved at any point in the near future by the constant research being done into it. What I've learnt in physics is that it's probably best to just accept what they tell us haha :smile:

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 104

Efemena15

Did anyone get a new email saying: "We are delighted that you have chosen to apply to UCL and the Faculty of Medical Sciences. Your application for the MB,BS Medicine programme is now being considered. Please read on for details of how your application will be assessed."

Reply 105

ako199

Original post by Joshi213

If only the teachers realised that haha
If I'm a genius, hopefully I'll get 9.0 9.0 5A :wink:

Yeah exactly, I'm trying to not think about offers but it's hard haha!
That makes sense to be honest, I guess it must be pretty advanced stuff, like uni level, if it just magically happens :wink:

Ah right that clears it up then, the extra energy is released/can be released in the form of high energy photons which have just been shown as gamma rays?

Haha I'm sure we don't need to, seems interesting stuff though to be fair! That's probably a good way to go about it, asking questions always makes stuff more complicated at school! Hahaha

The one thing that's now annoying me is just having to remember all the equations and not getting them muddled up in the physics questions :frown:

You will! I believe in your ingeniousness!! :wink:

And yeah it's annoying how they only ever tell you a fraction of the story... not that I could deal with all the uni level stuff! On our school trip to CERN they told us about all these virtual subatomic particles... successfully made our entire group feel stupid, no one understood a thing haha. It was a really inspiring trip, but not quite our level :redface:

If I was a bit more mathematically inclined, who knows, I might have gone down the physics route :tongue:

Yeah exactly, most of the time this energy is given off as kinetic energy (causing the daughter nuclei to move away) but here it's giving it off as photons ie gamma rays :smile:

You can remember quite a few of the equations by remembering the units but yeah, there are a few where you have to just remember them. Are there any particular ones which are hard to remember? In school we get data sheets for physics with all the equations on which makes life slightly easier...

Reply 106

Efemena15

Original post by Joshi213

The most recent I've had was the interview one, so not yet
Are you able to get onto their portal though? Or even any of their site at all? I can't do either, just keeps on loading...

No I can't access the portal either

Reply 107

ako199

Original post by Joshi213

Well hopefully I'll perform on Wednesday then haha! I think the science section should (hopefully, fingers crossed) be decent. Section 1 questions are just annoying - I either get them straight away fine, get stuck for like a minute, or have no clue what to do :frown:

YOU WENT TO SEE THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER? That must have been so awesome! (I apologise for the caps lock, it had to be done :wink:

)
Haha it'd have probably been a bit more surprising if people did understand it all. You'd be a brave one to do physics at uni haha! Physics is interesting for sure, but there's no real interaction with other people, one of the most important things about medicine in my opinion.

Ah okay that makes sense :smile:

Yeah things like speed = distance/time is easy because of things like mph, but there are other things like power and work done that are a little easy to forget because I haven't really used them for over a year and a half. I've written all the physics ones down on a sheet of paper - it took up both sides haha. The ones we use in maths (like the SUVAT equations, and movement are generally fine, those types of things) I remember because we have to use them so often in mechanics

Yeah I'd imagine it is slightly easier, this sucks because no calculators and no equations either... gotta love the BMAT eh

Section 1 is strange, like for some are quite straightforward and then a few questions I swear I couldn't work out even if I had the entire day. I guess some questions are just ridiculous, it's best to just leave them be :redface:

Triage it is...

Yesss! CERN was brilliant, like we didn't really learn much but the whole atmosphere was absolutely incredible. Like when you go on the tour round the place you get this overwhelming sense of 'wow the world is so magnificent and people are so intelligent aargh' so yeah, genuinely great trip :wink:

But yeah good point, not sure I could manage a career of working with numbers and a desk haha.

Well work done has the same sort of formula as moments (force*distance). If you think of work as energy transferred then power is the rate of this energy transfer, so divide by time. It's hard when you haven't done it in so long, I'd just keep doing questions so you'll get more familiar with them. Yeah stuff like that's a bit more difficult... and that's a lot of equations... acrnoyms maybe? And not having calculators is completely pointless, how is our ability to do long division relevant??

Meanwhile I'm trying to get this whole graph transformation thing down and decipher what all the random letters and lines mean haha... nightmare :redface:

Reply 108

ako199

Original post by Joshi213

Definitely, it's better cause you have over a minute and a half for each question, but some just make no sense! It's difficult to just triage a lot of them too :frown:

Yeah, cause of that it's annoying they don't give worked answers

Would have considered putting up with physics for a trip like that! Wouldn't have been able to do French though, so maybe not - French is love, French is life (hope you get that ridiculously random reference haha)
Similar sort of issue with a career in biochemistry I guess
Was it similar to the sort of feeling when you did your first work experience? Like that awe of like this is all so interesting, why can't we just do this at school haha

We haven't done moments yet, apparently they're awful though :O
Yeah exactly, I'm now finding I'm getting even some of the simple ones messed up
I think I'm gonna have to do something like that! It's annoying cause there are just so many :frown:

I've been questioning many things about this exam, more than just long division hahaha :wink:

Ah I can understand! Graph transformations become a little easier to understand the more you do them, guess that's a perk of doing a level maths. What are you having trouble with in particular?

How's your practice coming along in general though?

Yeah true I do like having time to actually think about the question, but some are just crazy. Since spending ages working it all out correctly gets you the same number of marks as a lucky guess, lots of guestimation will be happening...

In general I think section 1 is just about ok, though it really depends on how i do on the day. On section 2 the timing is still an issue for me... Maths is... bleh. I've only just got my head round the concept of f(x), and all this y-stretch and x-shift is a bit of an issue

No, moments isn't bad!! It's a simple concept, don't worry about it. It's just like work but this time it's force*distance from the pivot rather than distance in direction of force. Be positive and tell yourself it's easy haha :wink:

Aww I didn't get the reference :frown:

apologies, I feel like I've missed something big here haha.
Yes exactly!! And yeah, once you see what exactly medicine involves, it really puts it into perspective how pointless some of the things we learn in school are... like my first week of work experience was fabulous (and this probably sounds a bit weird) but I kind of felt like I belonged there? Like that's where I really wanted to be? That probably sounded really strange :redface:

but yeah, then we came back to school to learn about photosynthesis and pythagoras and it all seemed so pointless -.-

Oh and I got my offer from Keele for biomed yesterday :biggrin:

Even if it isn't medicine it just feels nice to have one haha

Reply 109

jalwxx

Does anyone know how many applicants there were this year for UCL?

Reply 110

ako199

Original post by Joshi213

Definitely gonna be having a lot of, erm, educated guesses in section one hahaha. I think you have to have a certain mind to do some questions like visualising shapes that make up other shapes. That's not easy, and it's hard to get those types of questions right. Yeah, gotta play to your strengths I guess. It's annoying that the scores are all separate and not put together, so one good score could make up for a not so good score, like in the UKCAT

Yeah I agree, it's either gonna be okay or (insert swearword here haha) poor. Section 2 is a tricky one to be fair in terms of timing you have to be quick but efficient. I sometimes have a couple left at the end I have to rush which is difficult when you have this much stress.

Ah okay so f(x) you get. For an x stretch, the 'thing' has to be directly affecting the x, and it's always the opposite of what you'd expect. So if it's f(x+2), it doesn't shift right by 2, it shifts left by 2, yeah? And then if it's f(2x), it'd be stretched by a scale factor of a half in the horizontal direction (so it'd get squashed in by scale factor of a half)
Similar for the y in that again it has to directly affect the y, but it'd do exactly what you'd expect. So if it's f(x) + 2 (even though there's no y here, it isn't affecting the x directly so has to be affecting the y values, i.e. the f(x) which is the y) it'd shift up by 2. And if it's 2f(x), scale factor of 2, stretched vertically.

Does that make sense/help?

Ah okay, if I'm honest it doesn't sound as bad as my teacher made it out to be!

Ah maybe it was just something that blew up at my school haha, it's fricking weird - type in on YouTube Shrek is love, Shrek is life. A pretty innappropriate video though so mind out haha

Didn't seem strange at all! That's exactly how I felt after each time, felt it even more after I saw surgery for the first time! It was so interesting, but then we had to go back and learn about whatever bs we had to haha, much the same as you :wink:

Ah congratulations! Yeah I got overly excited about mine too, even though I don't wanna do medicine it's an offer and pretty cool :smile:

I don't know if I'm doing well on the essay or not, it's so hard to judge it. And I think I underestimated it too :frown:

Yeah definitely, some of them are a bit strange, where it's more like a riddle than an exam question... and with the environment you're in with time limits and everything it's so easy to get confused. I know, I'd rather they just grouped everything together because right now my science score is not so great haha. And yeah, I always seem to run out of time so I can't really do the last few questions fully, I have to sort of skim read them and guess.

I'm glad that at least this isn't as important as the UKCAT, so messing this up doesn't have the same life-changing effect haha... hopefully... :s-smilie:

Aah ok that makes a lot more sense, thank you! So y does what you think it will and x does the exact opposite. And if it's not affecting x then it's affecting y. Why couldn't they put that in the revision guide? :rolleyes:

Oh my god. I just watched it. Wow. That was, um.. interesting? Haha. Accidentally ended up watching all three parts, whoops.

Oh ok, good to know I'm not the only one! I mean to be fair I didn't even do much apart from make tea and coffee (which I didn't know how to do properly at the time so that was an interesting experience haha) but I spent a few hours in the clinics and I loved it so much. I basically sulked my way through the next school week hehe.

Essays are so hard to judge yourself... I mean I know people are posting them on TSR but I'm a little afraid to do that :colondollar:

And this whole fitting it on 1 A4 thing is such rubbish, it isn't even a whole A4, half of it's used up! How are you meant to fit anything on there??

Reply 111

ako199

Original post by Joshi213

Calling some of them riddles is pretty much what they are haha! The ones I hate are always either like visualisation ones, or ones that ask how far away is this person when they left this long ago compared to this person when they left this long ago. They seem similar but they always have different ways of doing them and they just grind my gears no end hahaha.
Ah it#s the opposite for me, I'm doing better on the science ones than on section one (which hoenstly surprised me a little)

Yeah me too! It's just I worry I'm feeling a little too lax so I keep on procrastinating, it's only a few days now :/ Then again I wanna do as well as possible mostly because I wanna keep all my options open, and I don't really wanna do badly

That's exactly it! Yeah trust me, most people are still confused with that stuff until they get to sixth form and you sort of have to know it haha. So far though, I don't think I've come across any transformations, might just be me forgetting though haha.

Ah you watched all of them, must have enjoyed it :wink:

(the videos of course... hahahaha) yeah they are weird, it just went crazy at school, everyone just started quoting it for random things, like the aorta is love, the aorta is life, gotta love grammar schools hahaha

Trust me, everyone feels like it's a chore to go back to school after work experience, especially when it is interesting!

They really are! I'm doing some swapping with a friend which is useful but we only know so much haha. I tried to post mine on here but nobody replied, I know it wasn't amazing though haha
I know right! it's a few hundred words, and we have to do so much for it!

Ugh I know what you mean, I hate the ones about time, like anything with timetables or to do with time differences just flop. And some of them are so abstract, like I don't even know how to prepare for them, it's just sort of an IQ test... I never asked for this!!

I feel like I should be doing so much more, like I only started at the beginning of these holidays but I know some people began in the summer... it's a bit scary :frown:

And everyone doing the BMAT in my school are Oxbridge applicants so they're all going to ace it while I just attempt to scrabble my way to a score which may be considered somewhat decent... ugh life :rolleyes:

I did watch them... not sure why because I knew I'd probably regret it but I did it anyway haha. Hmm, this trend apparently hasn't reached our school yet... who knows, maybe I could start it :colone:

Yeah the transformation thing makes much more sense now, kind of looked like a bunch of random letters before. And now I'm one step closer to understanding what my friends are on about when they discuss maths stuff because right now sounds like a foreign language to me haha

Aah, you should try reposting it, I'm sure people have just missed it when it got lost between all the other essays. That's the problem, I'm not sure if I'm doing the essay right myself to I'm quite hesitant to go around correcting other people's essays :redface:

And yeah, like you need to answer three questions and give examples for most of your arguments and I find it so hard to shorten my essays... especially if it's something I have strong opinions about :colondollar:

It's hard discussing arguments that I don't agree with haha

Reply 112

matthew1151

right now even my A Level grades won't save me from how bad i am going to f up BMAT come this week

Reply 113

ako199

Original post by matthew1151

right now even my A Level grades won't save me from how bad i am going to f up BMAT come this week

Hahahah trust me, you're most definitely not the only one who thinks that way. But hey, I'm sure you could make up for it with your grades and stuff, at least you know they'll be looking at those too.
BMAT sucks... Like really really sucks...

Reply 114

matthew1151

Original post by ako199

dawg im trying past papers and i want to cry :'( at this point i'll be happy of getting into any uni especially since im an international student

Reply 115

ako199

Original post by Joshi213

I agree, the time ones and the abstract ones are just appalling and make me wish I'd just stuck to the UKCAT :frown:

. Exactly! Hahaha I don't get why we have to do all this stuff to get into uni just because we decided to choose a certain profession. Genuinely unfair

So do I! I feel like I've procrastinated too much as well. People started in the summer, jeesh! I guess cause everyone did the UKCAT at my school, even the one guy that wants to go to Cambridge can't be bothered because of everything we've had to do so far. Basically everyone only started these holidays. Hahaha! You've put work in, it'll work out :smile:

I reckon that if I put in as much work for this as I did for the UKCAT I could really ace it, but I just feel like I can't be bothered. I wanted to do a past paper last night, thought nah I'll just get up early and do it, and I still haven't started even though I made myself get up at like 8:30 - in the great words of the Chuckle Brothers, oh dear haha

I'm sure you don't regret watching them now :wink:

You could start it off at school! Or everyone will just think you're a weirdo hahaha

Ah okay it's good it makes a little more sense! Anything else in maths in general I can help with? If I can explain it to you, it should also consolidate it in my mind too so win win :smile:

I might post the one I'll do from this practice paper instead, might be a little better... haha we're just giving pointers on each other's, like saying develop this more, explain, more examples

Wait have you been doing all three essay questions in that one space?

Yeah I agree, I dislike pretty much every single essay question they give us hahaha

Ok that's good to know, I've been comparing myself to people in my school where there are 6 people trying for medicine at Oxbridge... I imagine it's going to be a little intimidating giving the test in a room with them :s-smilie:

Yeah I feel like I worked so much harder for the UKCAT than I have been for this. I only had two weeks to revise for this and even then I've barely done any of what I wanted to do. It's like I know I can do it... but I'm just...not =/ I really wish we didn't have to do this now, why couldn't they have held it over the summer or at least closer to the start of the year? When we weren't neck deep in homework and revision?

Haha oh no, I did regret it, very much so! I think Youtube lives off our curiosity by trapping us in a spiral of related videos. Yeah, they'll probably just think I'm a little strange.

Ah that's true, thank you. I can't think of any right now but I'll let you know if I do :smile:

Have you got any physics related queries? Or formulas which are a particular nuisance?

No no no no no, I meant the little sub-questions that you get under each main one!! Like there's normally one asking you to explain the statement and then one asking you to give arguments for and one against. Haha I can't imagine answering all 3 essay questions!! And yeah I guess that's best because it's sometimes hard to judge your own essays. My friend does English lit so she's looked at some of mine but she doesn't do science so some essays don't make much sense to her haha :rolleyes:

Reply 116

ako199

Original post by Joshi213

6 people going for medicine at Oxbridge? Jeesh we only have one haha, to be fair though, a few of us decided we didn't want to (personally didn't like the places much, and I think they're overrated, especially for medicine). Some people just, well, didn't do well enough... asking for UMS is ridiculous though, in my opinion at least. There's more to it than just academics. Also, I don't know why you wouldn't want patient contact until 3 years into the course...

For sure, it's just been a bunch of oh yeah I'm gonna do that, wait no it's 2 hours since I said I'll start, I'll start in 5 minutes, etc haha! If I'm honest, I'd rather they just let us in without it :wink:

No worries, and not at the moment to be honest. I've found the questions aren't too bad so far, it's just a matter of making sure I always remember the formulae properly, that just needs about half an hour or so and I should be good - I'll do that before I do another paper

Ah okay! You scared me for a second hahahahaha! Yeah exactly, you don't really know how to mark it at all. That's useful for the language part to be fair.

I was wondering if you knew what it meant in the markscheme where it says a good counter-proposal/argument is given. Is this talking about the argument they've asked for in the question? Or a counter-argument to what they asked for? (hope that makes sense, this has got me and my mates confused haha). Putting it in bold so you definitely notice it hahaha

Yeah I don't think I'd be very happy there at all. Even if I just managed to scrape my way in to Cambridge I'd probably be one of the, um... not so high achievers? And constantly being surrounded by impossibly highly academic people doesn't seem very nice... Not that I got like above 96% UMS anyway, like that's just ridiculous. Very clever people could make pretty rubbish doctors. I guess it's more to do with "we're a brilliant uni with a super competitive course, let's make this as hard as physically possible"...

Haha true, not doing the BMAT at all would be great. Though in a way the essay bit does help because you learn arguments for and against controversial issues which could be asked in interviews. Section 1 and 2 are just pointless.

Yeah once you get the formulae down you'll be fine. It's sort of the same with maths, once you get the method you should be fine (provided you don't accidentally mess up, which is highly likely for me :redface:

)

Okay, now I feel compelled to answer you in bold too haha. The way I understood it was the argument contradicting what is stated in the question. But either way when you're writing the essay you will discuss two sides so you'll have to develop both arguments well. Though it doesn't say it in the mark scheme, I'd imagine that both a weak argument or a weak counter-argument would affect the overall score.
I definitely noticed it :wink:

Reply 117

ako199

Original post by Joshi213

I agree, it's just not right for everyone, I feel Cambridge is a bit small too, to be honest. Indeed, some of the greatest minds are often so bad in social situations. Hahaha that's exactly what I think!

I would love it if we didn't have to. I've done decently in the papers I've done so far, but I have no clue about how I'll do in the actual one :/

Yeah once you understand it, you understand it properly, but it's just understanding it in the first place. It's okay cause a fair amount of the physics is similar to mechanics in maths, but it's just the rest of it haha

Hahaha I'm glad you did notice it :wink:

but in normal writing... :wink:

Ah so you see it as the argument against what they've asked you to argue? I get that but surely it means the counter argument they asked for in the question because otherwise, they haven't then explicitly given credit to the main part of the essay? Then again this isn't an ordinary essay, we have to write a lot on what is less than an A4 page...

Wow I wouldn't have thought Cambridge would be small, somehow because of the name attached to it I assumed it was some gigantic grand establishment :O

I don't know, practice papers have gone okayish but I'd really like to have been getting more, especially since this isn't like the UKCAT where practices might be harder than the real thing because our practices are real past papers... :frown:

Woah ok now I'm confused, so say usually the title is a statement, then the questions underneath will say argue in favor and argue against? I assumed by counterargument they meant the arguments against, because the question is proposing an opinion and backing up that opinion is just supporting the argument. The counterargument comes from you expressing opinions against it, right? I don't know, I think it's wrong of them to just say counter-argument in the mark scheme because there's no way they aren't going to judge both arguments since that's what they're asking for.

Reply 118

ako199

Original post by Joshi213

Oh really? All the colleges are pretty small, especially compared to an ordinary univeristy year, but the actual town is small which I hated. To be fair I only went to see Queen's I think (twice with the school). Oxford is bigger apparently, but I never really fancied bothering to see it though haha

Yeah, I've not done enough either :/ if it's like the specimen paper I won't be upset, that wasn't too bad at all, though the essay questions weren't great, like always I guess. I agree though, the actual UKCAT was easier than practices, at least the QR and AR were, not the VR or DA unfortunately.

But from what I've come across, you usually get a statement, get asked to explain what it means/what some part of the statement means. Then you get asked to argue against whatever the statement was. Then they ask for some sort of opinion. So the marks go to the counter argument which would kinda make sense if you get me? Have you seen the mark scheme and what it says? It's unclear so I'm just asking everybody haha, I've even sent in a request thing on their website, basically just an email, asking if they could clear it up for me haha

Just still not sure about if the actual essay is any good :/

Aah just me making assumptions then. Yeah I didn't bother going either, I know for sure it's not the place for me. I'd be pretty darn happy with UCL :biggrin:

If you're doing well with the practices then I'm sure you won't have a problem on the day. I don't think nerves and stuff are a factor anymore because we've given so many tests now, it's kind of a routine thing :rolleyes:

And yeah VR and DA weren't the easiest, but my overall score was like 600 higher than I was getting on the practices so I was pleasantly surprised haha

Yeah, by 'arguments for' I meant things like 'explain the reasoning behind the statement' or similar questions. I think maybe they left it a bit ambiguous because not all essays ask for the same thing? Like the questions asked within each essay title are all different but they all definitely encompass a counterargument, so that's all they can put in the mark scheme. It is really vague though, they could have explained it a little clearer...
I could look at your essay if you like? Or you could try reposting it and see if anyone picks up on it?

Reply 119

ako199

Original post by Joshi213

To be fair it's all different, what people look for in a uni. Me too! To be honest, I'd be pretty happy with any of my options, even if I haven't seen Leicester, hahaha!

Yeah I'm nervous now, but it should go on the day, fingers crossed haha
At first when you said 600 I thought you meant the average hahahaha! What did you get overall then? :smile:

That's a pretty pleasant surprise haha
I was actually a bit disappointed because I got about 50-60 average lower than I was getting in my practices, but then all the scores went down by about that much this year so I sort of got what I should have, just that last year's were incredibly inflated

Yeah I get you now. Ah actually that makes sense, about the ambiguity. Even in the 5A example in the book it isn't really too clear.
Ah okay that would be useful :smile:

I need to type it up then I'll attach it or send you a private message or something. I could do one of yours too if you want?

See, I thought with time I'd learn to accept that unis won't be getting back to me for a while. I haven't. I checked my e-mail three times today specifically for that. It's a bit of a problem.

Nahh you'll be fine, the fact that you're getting decent scores at all shows that you are capable :smile:

I got like 2300 on one of the Kaplan mocks which literally scared me to death, but I got 2920 on the real thing which was quite nice haha. What did you get? Yeah, they said they re-scaled it so what's considered a good score has probably (hopefully) decreased quite a bit haha.

Yeah, like even with the 400 Questions book it's really hard to compare your essay to the ones that are in there because the points are completely different. That'd be nice thank you, I'll type mine up too then :smile: