Sheffield students complaining over "impossible" question

[Judgeneo]

For the given question though, they would have learnt in detail. I've never studied economics, here are my answers:

3ai) What does the co-ordination cost represnt?

Road maintenance, sewage, lighting, policing contributions, maintainance of green spaces, development of infrastructure, planning permissions, administration of fines and tax etc...

All you need to know is what a council does for a city.

3aii) Why should the exponent of N be greater than 1 for this term?

An exponent less than 1 means that the admin cost per head will fall continuously with population growth. In reality the cost per head does not call continuously, as the larger the population, the more complicated the administration of the city.
Then just give some examples of tasks that large cities have to do that villages do not, and some examples of infrastructure which does not have economies of scale (if added gradually) such as sewage.

3bi)Draw a graph of costs per population

Lets take sigma = 50 and gamma = 0.2

find optimal population

Max money = d/dN (sigmaN^0.5 - gammaN^2) = 0
=> 0.5sigma N^-0.5 - 2gammaN = 0
=> 0.5sigma N^-0.5 = 2gammaN
=> Sigma = 4gamma N^1.5
=> N = (sigma/4gamma)^(2/3)

3ci) What sigma and gamma create peasant economies?

Use above equation, needs to be profitable for city to occur.

3cii) Why do these values change over time

Technology, improving global economy, expectation of higher living standards

3ciii) What does this say should happen to optimal city size over time

Technology improves implies bigger cities over time.


Now where is my degree!

 

[XeNoN89]

Which means it's working as intended.

When you have 3years+ of 'degree level' education in economics, coupled with all the maths skills you would have acquired along the way.. to turn round and start a petition and say this question is impossible is pretty outrageous.

Yeah i did only get a D in GCSE maths

I used to work in a school and remember walking into an A level maths lesson...didn't have a scooby what was going on in there!

 

[adolf hamster]

In terms of mathematics this is gcse level stuff surely?

The only thing to complain about is they dont give you the constants, but as judgeneo proved you can make a pretty reasonable stab at it.

Wish my final year paper is gonna be that easy, but i've already done worse questions in first year....

 

[Dj_Jestar]

Students? Complaining? Well I never.

 

[Dave]

Sheffield grad here. I did Engineering though, so I giggled at the use of "mathematics"

 

[bitslice]

Today I learned that we need to cull cities with sub optimal populations.

 

[aardvark]

i think its a bit harsh to expect the students to answer questions on something they haven't been taught and weren't told to read about.

i did a science degree and don't think i have ever done an exam where they have done this.

 

[Xordium]

You are supposed to read around your subject at that level. There is no excuse it's not like it's even that hard a question. I wonder what the little darlings would say if they had negative marking.

 

[Tunney]

I've never studied economics in my life. I have a reasonable understanding of maths but seriously, this is squares and square roots, that's taught at the age of 12 if not earlier.

I took a couple of finance classes in addition to my physics degrees at university. We got put in the same class as a bunch of business students. None of them knew any maths. The lecturer had to dedicate an entire double lecture to how to use a calculator. We didn't complain though - we picked up the hand-out and went down the pub.

 

[monkentage]

IIRC Sheffield do a BA Economics without much maths and a BSc with the maths.

 

[Deus Ex]

The idea that you should go into an exam with a guaranteed list of concepts which you should know with nothing else expected is bull ****. My course does it though, its everything from head to toe.

 

[Westyfield2]

This question isn't even hard.

 

[DanTheMan]

It looks very similar to my final year macroeconomic exams at Uni of Manchester. There is no maths in there that won't have been covered at some point in the course I imagine, it may have just been worded differently.

 

[muon]

This question isn't even hard.

It is a 30 marks question. You should be writing an essay with some differential calculus.

Apart from the easy Maths, could you write an essay without a lot of speculation, if you haven't covered the topic?

This is university, you can't just guess at stuff without supporting evidence.

 

[dowie]

One student told BBC News she was particularly angry about the first question which contained mathematics for which, she said, they had not been prepared.

"We had been told it was not a maths-based paper.

"We feel misled and angry.

"Every part of the question was, 'Calculate this, partially differentiate that.'"

I don't see where partial differentiation is required here....


A friend of mine studied 'Business Studies' at Sheffield, he was adamant that he had 'lots of maths' in his course - he showed me some questions, he had some simultaneous equations... (something he should have covered in his maths GCSE)

I do think that in the 1st year universities have to cover a lot of what otherwise would have been assumed knowledge from A - Level as standards have slipped over the years, particularly in maths. But this was a paper for 3rd year Economics students - they're supposed to be smart/numerate????

There is an expectation that all exams will follow a very similar format to past papers and the questions will be structured in the same way albeit with a few minor variations... It isn't that unfair that a final year paper might actually make you think and apply your knowledge rather than regurgitate what you practiced in the past papers/follow the same routines that you've remembered for answering the typical question 3 etc..etc.. that doesn't test anything other than how much effort you've put into studying and practicing past papers.

 

[muon]

I suspect not many people took this "Economics of Cities" option and the ones that did, weren't the smartest in the class, especially if this was a module with a reputatiom of having little maths in it.