Anyone else with the A Level results today?
- Thread starter PermaBanned
- Start date
Associate
Erm... Having got friends studying maths at top Universities in the UK, and studying the subject at Oxford myself, I can tell you we do not all have the same curriculum. What I cover in my first year (which is just 20 weeks of lectures, I might add) some of my friends take an entire two years to cover. I only have 10 hours of lectures a week, at other Universities they have double the hours of lectures to cover half the material. Having seen UCL and Imperial problem sheets on identical topics I've studied, they're definitely not trying to test the same thing. The UCL/Imperial sheets were almost entirely about repeating definitions and proofs (rote learning) whereas problem sheets I'm set are, to put it bluntly, quite a lot harder! It's as much about "the way of thinking" that tutors love to drum into you, more so than "learn this off by heart, it might come up on the exam" mentality.
Associate
What, 10 hours per week of lectures for just 20 weeks for maths at Oxford?
How is that hard? As long as you are self motivated and do enough reading and practice in your free time you would be fine as long as you are good at the subject you are taking, which anyone going to Oxbridge already would be as they only accept super geniuses.
How is that hard? As long as you are self motivated and do enough reading and practice in your free time you would be fine as long as you are good at the subject you are taking, which anyone going to Oxbridge already would be as they only accept super geniuses.
Associate
As I said, in those 10 hours/week, 20 weeks of maths, you're doing much more than those getting 20 hours/week and 40 weeks of maths. It's not even comparable in any way really.
Associate
- Joined
- 19 Dec 2009
- Posts
- 1,701
E in General Studies?
You "special" OP?
You "special" OP?
Just because it's worthless doesn't mean it's easy to get a good grade in it...
Most schools give zero education on how to answer a general studies paper. I remember doing mine, I didnt understand or know the answer to a single question asked.
I was actually told that general studies was an exam consisting of a crossover of many different subjects. No it wasnt, it was a whole paper of an alien subject that I had never studied, learned or knew a single thing about, and we were given no kind of advice or help on how to revise for it.
I got an E in general studies too, but I simply dont mention it because its a useless exam. I also got an E in GCSE German. Big whoop, nobody cares about that useless subject.
Soldato
Warwick over Bristol.......
You did ... visit these places, right?!
You've already tried convincing me, and you succeeded in making it my backup
I haven't managed to visit Bristol, because I'm having STEP tutorials every day bristol has an open day, but I'll head down at some point, even if I can't get into the university buildings. On the other hand, I really liked Warwick, and it's the only place I haven't found anything I dislike about it, so that and Bristol will be my two choices.Also, on the topic of general studies, I got a B in AS. I went to the lessons for the first half of the year, and when the january exam had *nothing* to do with the lessons, I stopped going (and got a high B grade in that exam). I then took the summer exam having not gone to a single lesson, and got a low A, meaning my overall grade was only *just* below an A. Which would bother me, were it not general studies
The exams just needed some common sense to do well really.And what exactly are k and r strategists? I have NEVER been taught or come across either of those terms before.
Mortality an population graphs I can do, but I did geography A level so that stuff is easy peasy to me. For someone who hasnt studied geography since age 14, it could be difficult.
Mortality an population graphs I can do, but I did geography A level so that stuff is easy peasy to me. For someone who hasnt studied geography since age 14, it could be difficult.
Last edited:
Soldato
My bro only sat Maths C1, but got 92%
Associate
This is nonsense. Firstly some universities don't follow textbooks, the courses can often following the whims of the individual lecturers. The first year or two might be tightly constrained but by the time you get to 3rd or 4th years there's a lot more freedom for the lecturers. I went to a lecture course once where the lecturer spent considerable amounts of time telling us about the work he was doing at the time. In fact half the course was aimed at guiding people into his area of research, since it was a 4th year course and he was looking for PhD students in the class.
And that is just courses at the same university changing year to year. Different universities do different material. I've seen stuff in some 3rd year courses I did in my 1st year. If you think the material at different universities is much the same then you're a little naive. Sure if you do (as in my case) mathematics then you need to cover a core of material but when you get into the 3rd and 4th year courses the difference becomes readily apparent.
Doing a postdoc thing doesn't mean you're as good as other people doing a postdoc, ie the bar is not universal across all universities.
I work for a company where you need a PhD to just apply. We have a job offer rate of 0.5%. Some of the people we interview, who had degrees, masters, PhDs, numerous papers to their names, awards from their universities, are AWFUL. Seriously, I cannot convey how bad they can be. Now I wasn't the best student during my undergrad time but having done my postgrad at a different universities and seen the output from other universities in my area I now realise just how pushed the course I did was (I did my undergrad and masters at Cambridge and postgrad at Southampton). At my job I've seen people with PhDs from Bath, Copenhagen, Minsk, Durham, Oxford, Cambridge, Sydney, all over the world. In the years I've been here I can literally count on one hand the number of people I've thought "Wow, you're sharp" about, despite every single person I've seen being a PhD. The number of people I knew as an undergrad whom I thought that about I don't have enough digits to count, pretty much everyone I thought that about.
Unfortunately there's plenty of awful academics, in every subject. There's plenty of PhD students who had terrible supervisors, who'll wonder allowed how the **** their supervisor got a job (I'm such a person). There's plenty of academics publishing laughable, terrible work in poor journals. I work in the private sector doing research and read a lot of papers from maths, physics and chemistry disciplines and some of them are terrible. Some of them are not in my area but are still obviously very poorly written and doing a pointless task (just solving the same equation 10 times with different initial conditions, on a computer!).
Now I'm not trying to knock your friends, I obviously have no idea about them but simply pulling the "Well they are academics now" doesn't give them a free pass. Anyone whose been in academics circles will know plenty of academics who shouldn't have the job they do, are terrible researchers and awful lecturers.
Yes, exam levels are different at different universities. I once remember on this forum comparing the 2nd year Aston maths exam with a homework problem sheet I once had in my 1st year.I'm pretty sure it isn't the standard of teaching though. If the teaching was so good, everyone would pass with flying colours? I'm fairly sure it is a harder degree. My bro went there so this is what I'm basing my info off. Obviously he's gonna be a bit biased.
You're flat out wrong. I've been taught stuff like quantum mechanics at Cambridge and I've helped teach quantum mechanics at Southampton. The material might seem superficially the same and taught in the same year but the depth is quite different. The QM course I did as a student must have covered 50~100% more material, of a more complex level, than the material I taught as a postgrad.
And any employer where a degree/masters makes a serious difference should know that the MA from Oxbridge is automatic. If they don't then perhaps the degree isn't really that relevant to the job?
Not true, since your logic only works if everyone sits the same level of difficulty exam, which they don't.Courses only have AAA entry requirements because those kind of unis only want to take in students that will get higher grades to improve their pass rate / grade figures
Spoken like someone who doesn't realise just how much of the iceberg sits below the surface.
I remember someone on this forum (went by the name of Jez) saying, many years ago, in a discussion about mathematics degrees "How much more mathematics can there be after A Level?".
You seriously believe you know everything about your subject? I could read from sun up to sun down textbooks and papers, constantly, without stop, for the whole of my life and I would never keep up with the area of research I did my PhD in, never mind the MUCH broader area of theoretical physics in general.
You sound like a man who thinks he has all the answers but you haven't realised just how VAST even very specialised areas of science are. As people progress through education they generally realise they know less and less of the total amount known, because they realise just how VAST the information is. Obviously you didn't gain that understanding during your extensive studying.....
Hah, that looks so easy. Anyone could do that.