Oxford PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) Students and Applicants

Just an interview question that I don't really know how to answer: " How would your studying PPE at Oxford be valuable to Oxford and to society"

Is that a likely question? Urmm, it's a tough one to answer without sounding arrogant. The to society bit is easy enough, just say how important it is to have people who understand politics, philsophy and economics in society to keep it running, and to further it. Just add the meat to that. Valuable to oxford though I'm not sure, something about working well with other people and being interested in debate and contributing ideas? I'd love to hear what some other people say though.

Is that a likely question? Urmm, it's a tough one to answer without sounding arrogant. The to society bit is easy enough, just say how important it is to have people who understand politics, philsophy and economics in society to keep it running, and to further it. Just add the meat to that. Valuable to oxford though I'm not sure, something about working well with other people and being interested in debate and contributing ideas? I'd love to hear what some other people say though.

I ask that because it was one of the mock questions that came up diuring a mock interview I had agees ago and I didnt know how to answer it then..I was like "Er..." because of the arrogance thing. But what you wrote was more or less what I said.

p.s: Have you read Hobbes' 'Leviathan' ?

someone was asked for PPE to draw the graph of modx+mody=1... i really couldn't have done this, i asked my maths teacher and he said that it would never be asked on my AS or even my A2 course (i didn't persue it)...i have an A in AS maths (no Further maths though) and wouldn't have thought of it as a weak subject for me, but this worries me alot. It was also someone who was at interview at the same college i'm going to. Quite stressed! Do you generally all see this question and think 'oh yes well of course it's ...' or are you more of the same position as me i.e. really not knowing the right answer?
Comments much appreciated, thanks.

rosa.s could it be y= -|x| line shifted up one ish? Dunno if that was explained well, the first point going from right to left would be (0,1) then (-1,2) and (-2,3) just progressing like y= -|x| but only for positive values of y and negative x as in it'd be within the 2nd quadrant. I feel very wrong in that but it's what I would try, then I'd say I'm not sure but that's an educated guess...
If what I wrote makes no sense I could try re-explaining. I got |y|= -|x|+1

rosa.s could it be y= -|x| line shifted up one ish? Dunno if that was explained well, the first point going from right to left would be (0,1) then (-1,2) and (-2,3) just progressing like y= -|x| but only for positive values of y and negative x as in it'd be within the 2nd quadrant. I feel very wrong in that but it's what I would try, then I'd say I'm not sure but that's an educated guess...
If what I wrote makes no sense I could try re-explaining. I got |y|= -|x|+1

Thanks very much for that- i had tried making some educated guesses myself, but that's given them alot more clarity (and even is the same as one of my, erhum, 'numerous' to put it mildly, attempts!)

Mmm.. apparently another question went something along the lines of: how would you draw a line length root two?
I would have never worked out that it was a right angled triangle pythagoras thing under pressure. I mean it's not hard but.. it's a bit like well, I can tell you how inflation works will that do?

It seems jacobwilliamson knows, he said its a diamond!! How odd... Seems an educated guess doesn't work then maybe with explanation I'd get it... I though mod means any value you put in the | | is positive? Leading to my interpretation with |y| all positive and -|x| all negative then shifted up one... Jacobwilliamson can you help please and explain? I know this isn't a maths forum but one more post can't hurt. I am so

I liked that one, pressure is a bitch tbh. I got there but I'd have been floundering for a bit, happy I didn't read the rest of the message till I saw the light . I'll stop posting here for a bit, I'm clogging it with my boredom/worry/exitement!!

God I am not looking forward to the economics interview; its my favourite of the three subjects but there is no room to blag when it comes to the technical stuff. If I get in a tricky spot in the others I can always digress or bring up an interesting quote from a book I read, but am helpless if faced with a question like that.

I am pretty competent at maths but I might have got stuck on that one. I will have rearranged it to:

[y] = 1 - [x] and can scetch

and the answer I got is:

1\ /\ /
0_\/_\/__

Anyone know if its right?

Mmm.. apparently another question went something along the lines of: how would you draw a line length root two?
I would have never worked out that it was a right angled triangle pythagoras thing under pressure. I mean it's not hard but.. it's a bit like well, I can tell you how inflation works will that do?

God I am not looking forward to the economics interview; its my favourite of the three subjects but there is no room to blag when it comes to the technical stuff. If I get in a tricky spot in the others I can always digress or bring up an interesting quote from a book I read, but am helpless if faced with a question like that.

I've been spamming up the chat thread for weeks now, so don't feel alone in your frenzied posting.
Wow it's really odd to think that we're competing for a place? I don't feel at all aggressive toward you, in fact I hope you do well!
Your interpretation of mody+modx=1 is what I would have done as well.
Not sure where the diamond comes in? It looks like a fairly simple translation, just just up by one then reflected in the err.. y axis since all your doing is:

mod y = mod x
then f(y) = f(-x) + 1.

No?
Which I realise is basically what you said, just trying to clear it up in my own head really .