The Oxford maths interview, shaking up admissions

Post by aninhumer » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 1:23 PM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #26

tfgg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They recently (a few years ago) introduced A* grades for 90+/100 scores, where A was 80/100 before and so, as you note, not very discriminating. I'm not totally sure, but I think a standard offer for one of the elite universities is A*AA these days. I'm not sure I like the idea. Only having to hit 80 reduces stress quite a bit, and it gave me time to do extracurricular things like programming, and way more maths modu…

[At least when I took them a few years ago] the admissions offices get your raw results anyway - so even if it was just 'A', they could still have their own internal A* for 90+. Surprised nobody's mentioned STEP, three exams at least two of which are required for the mathematics tripos (and I think engineering at some colleges) and is significantly more likely to require preparation. I don't think any applicant would…

Post by ivansavz » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 5:31 PM UTC

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #30

I was curious to see the plot of log(log x). It's weird. Fortunately we have Wolfram Alpha so it was trivial to quickly see it: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+log(log+x)

Post by apricot » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 11:57 PM UTC

tragomaskhalos wrote: post #29

Smaug123 wrote: post #4

I wonder to what extent there is anyone who could cope with the Oxford course but who could not breeze through A-level Further Maths. I entirely understand that the converse is false: there are people who are extremely good at exams but who simply couldn't cope with the Oxford course. Almost all of those on the Cambridge maths course (which I'm taking to be similar) found A-level maths/further maths very easy. Of cou…

My experience is that there are three levels of maths ability among people who breezed A-level, or at least passed it well enough to do university maths: - fundamentally does not grok University-level maths at all; - gets "ordinary" university maths (ie redbrick and "below"), but would not be able to cope with Oxbridge level; - Oxbridge level There are stark step-jumps between these three, and exam results are not a…

Post by ivansavz » Sat, Mar 05, 2016, 4:38 AM UTC

jamessb wrote: post #36

ivansavz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to comment that Google search does plots too, but in this case it seems to get it wrong: https://www.google.ca/search?q=plot%20ln(ln(x) )

How so? The important parts to include on a sketch are that the function is monotonically increasing, has an asymptote at x=1 [0], intercepts the x-axis at x=e (approx 2.7) and quickly becomes almost flat. Both graphs agree on these points. Wolfram Alpha is using the complex logarithm ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_logarithm ) to extend to x [0]: For values of x < 1, ln(x) < 0, so ln(ln(x)) is not a real num…

Post by tragomaskhalos » Tue, Mar 08, 2016, 12:01 PM UTC

stuxnet79 wrote: post #34

tragomaskhalos wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is that there are three levels of maths ability among people who breezed A-level, or at least passed it well enough to do university maths: - fundamentally does not grok University-level maths at all; - gets "ordinary" university maths (ie redbrick and "below"), but would not be able to cope with Oxbridge level; - Oxbridge level There are stark step-jumps between these three, and exam results are not a…

Liked the tone of your post. Did not detect any bitterness. Does your mathematical background serve a use in your current career, which I assume is as a dev of some sort since you are on Hacker News?