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

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SamOW


But all this does make it seem like we had the same test yes. My essay SUCKED but what you gonna do.. Hope the college I've chosen puts less weight on that than propperly thought out written work :smile:


which essay did you choose? i did the one about a fear of flying compared to driving...
I mucked the essay part up entirely aswell.

I went in there certain I would write a plan, and then in the thick of it, didn't, and ended up writing the most uncohesive essay I have ever written. If they choose applicants on the basis of this then I am most certainly not going to Oxford.

Why oh why did I not write a plan? Every other damn essay I have ever written I have written a plan for. Bloody fatigue.
I picked Freedom of Speech - though first ruled it out as I decided I didn't have anything to say about it, but then realised I knew note about fear of flying (except that marge simpson has it :p:) or drug abuse and whatever. Felt gutted as I've been sitting on an article on Freedom of Speech that came up in The Economist 2 weeks ago, but haven't read it yet and almost did that morning but didn't in the end!

I think the time pressure made me feel like I hadto write like heck and I answered it like a general studies exam, only with less real reference and more of a scramble to cover the points needed in 3 paragraphs - so it was just over 2 pages but didn't really have any sort of conclusion :s

That being said, it was just a statement - didn't ask how far I agreed or not or anything, so kinda stupid to answer in that there wasn't really too much direction. I was scared to write Abu Hamza in case I spelt it wrong! Is that mispelt? Oh deeear :smile:
I just got completely distracted by the bullet points they ask you to meet. I should have just ignored and written an essay covering the author's comments. Some of my content was ok, I mean I explored the inability to assume what the author was referring to as "despicable things" due to a lack of necessary and sufficent criterion/definen for example.

I just didn't however produce anything cohesive, purely because I somehow forgot to write a plan. I really don't understand why I didn't. I mean I spoke to the examiner at the start asking where I should handwrite my plan (as I did it on a laptop). And then I ********** didn't. I just can't conceive how I managed to do this. It's so damn frustrating that it doesn't reflect my essay writing ability at all, which is generally to a high standard, atleast with regards to cohesiveness. :mad: :mad: :mad:
... you could use a laptop?! Dyslexia dysmexia :biggrin:
Does anybody think that these results will be accessible to anyone other than Oxford? I would hate that essay to ruin my chances at other universities.
No I'm not dyslexic, I just have illegible handwriting.
I've never been allowed to rely on that as an excuse :redface:! My college only lets the dyslexics type so here's me presuming some nationwide level of equity.. Ha.

And it's the Oxford PPE exam, so won't go to any other unis - that'd cost them more money to send it, whilst they're not liasing with UCAS to know where you're going so it's not like they'll send it everywhere in the uk just on the offchance :smile:
Well I failed several modules due to my handwriting, so they asked if I wanted to see if I could take them on a laptop instead. So I took some handwriting test - all I had to do was type a random essay on a laptop, and write an essay of a similar length by hand. They compared them, then confirmed that I could use a laptop if I wanted. So I did.
Failed due to handwriting? Ouch, that's a little extreme - there's nothing you could do to make it better or that? My teachers just always forced me to try and make it better etc..
Was too hard to make it better. I just have doctor's handwriting. Think faster than I write so just "slurry my words" so to speak. Find it too difficult to slow down and write legibly, takes up far too much of my time.
I see, I think (or thought, seems to be going down recently) I think faster than I write - and presume many people do also - but that just means that I need to concentrate to try and get more cohesive arguments rather than confusing myself and others by having jumps in my prose.. My handwriting's not neat - but it's not fast either. I don't know.

In my current job I haveto read doctors handwriting, which sucks, so I know what you mean - but then mine's not a lot better (thinks back to year 11, when a visiting woman and year 6 were looking through our physics lesson and she said "look, your handwriting might get better like theirs" - the looked at my book and she was like "err, maybe someone elses" so looking at my friends she was more pleased)..
My arguments usually are cohesive (not in this case unfortunately!), and I can normally write very quickly. However, I generally write too much, as never really developed the ability to write concisely. I generally find I can waffle as much as I like and still fit it all in in the time of an exam because I write so quickly.
Reply 853
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rburton
Here's my thinking behind the steps one:

-We all agree that both their right feet land together every 3.6m

-The question asked how many times both their right feet landed together in a 100m stretch

-28 * 3.6 = 100.8
That means that if their both right feet landed together 28 times, the final time would be out of the 100m stretch.

-27 * 3.6 = 97.2
If it was 27 steps, the last time both their right feet landed together would be just before the 100m stretch.

Just my thoughts on it.
yes yes agreed.
I put 27 (i.e. A) because I hadn't put down A in a while.


Just kidding...I did do that for some questions though.
Reply 856
Avatar for lcc
lcc
Ahhh I completely messed up the essay!! I spent over five minutes planning out the advertisement question, after which I realised I was absolutely unable to phrase my thoughts in a coherent way and switched to the question on patriotism... By then I was in complete panic and just wrote things down without thinking them over, so my introduction was laughably weak, and halfway through the essay I realised I'd gone down the wrong path entirely and should have approached the question from a different angle, but by then I only had some ten minutes left and it was too late to do anything about it... Plus I wrote in pen (why? why??) and crossed out entire sentences and generally made a mess of the answer sheet. Christ I can't believe I ****ed it up so bad.

Do you think there's any way I could redeem myself with the written work? I usually do very well at essays, which makes failing the PPE test just that much more painful. I should have practiced beforehand; we get two hours to write at school and I just couldn't cope with the time limit. I'm absolutely kicking myself for being so damn unprepared now.

Ah, sorry for the rant, I just had to get this out of my system.

How important do you think the exam is in the admissions process, and how important has it been in the past? I heard a rumour that University College doesn't look at written work at all and bases decisions entirely on the test and the interviews. I did very well on the multiple choice part, probably around 90%, though it won't be enough to compensate for that atrocious essay. Christ, I'm not even half done with the application process and have already managed to **** up my chances.

(Enough angst, must get back to slaving on my EE now.) :smile:
Reply 857
Avatar for lcc
lcc
Ah! TSR censors swearwords! Despicable language indeed. :rolleyes:

Ps. LoveEng: Where are you from? I'm an international applicant too, from Finland.
So the answer WAS 27? Freaking awesome. I didn't have time to think that one through properly (the last set of ten was a lot more time consuming than the first 40, so I mismanaged time a little, ending up having to make educated guesses on this one and another), so I took the two reasonable ones (27 and 28) and went for 27, just on the offchance it was one of those tricks where 28 is a nice even number and easy to get answer, but because they start on their left foot or something, it's actually 27.

Oh, and I hadn't done A in ages.

International applicants had different essays. International was: Advertisements, Fear (how much do you agree with a statement about it), Patriotism (how much do you agree with a statement about it).

I'm looking forward to the interview. Whether I get in or not, it'll be nice to stop worrying about Oxford (got enough to worry about in the IB to be honest). Going to send my work off soon, one of the essays is a bit poor (if we could modify them, I would make so many changes!), but I'm happy with the other.
january 31st. and only the multiple choice bit.

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