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The Oxford maths interview, shaking up admissions

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Re: The Oxford maths interview, shaking up admissions

#21

Post by hellisonwright »

tfgg wrote: post #19
reillyse wrote: post #18

I didn't do the A-levels but from my understanding of them I have always thought that they don't seem to discriminate between candidates well enough. That is to say that there just are not enough grades. I think the passing grades you can get are A,B,C or D. Most people who get in to the top universities get straight A's. I think if each of these grades was split in 3 it would make the result a lot more meaningful an…

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…

This is spot on. These days the pressure of achieving A* grades in maths and further maths for maths applicants definitely reduces pupils' capacity for taking additional modules 'for fun'. The standard offer for top universities has become A* A* A, often with the proviso of passing an additional entrance exam (STEP / AEA)... I have seen the offer go as high as A* A* A* without the entrance exam, and achieving this is is a feat in itself, requiring both breadth and depth in several subjects, and consistently strong performances in 6 - 10 exams.

Re: The Oxford maths interview, shaking up admissions

#22

Post by technotony »

tfgg wrote: post #20
cgio wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I wrong to think that the stretching of the band does not have anything to do with "how far along the band" the mouse will travel? Maybe it's my English as a second language, but my intuition is that the mouse still travels along the band as it expands, and you would probably need a point of reference, e.g. How far along the gap that the elastic band bridges to make the question more challenging.

The mouse is walking along the band, while the end of the band moves away, however the mouse is also being carried along by the expansion of the band. I think the best approach is to think in terms of the fractional coordinate of the mouse along the band, and work out its effective velocity in this coordinate.

Correct, if you structure the problem as the proportion completed at time t relative to the proportion at time t-1, then you can sum in the limit as t goes to infinity to show surprisingly that he gets to the end under both scenarios.

Re: The Oxford maths interview, shaking up admissions

#23

Post by yomly »

From speaking to people that have gone to Oxford and Cambridge, they are definitely not necessarily letting in just the brightest minds. Nor do I think they truly are trying to find them - there is a definite "fit" for these places. If I had to characterise it, I'd say "smart, and very academic/scholarly". They all seem to have a deep appreciation of some subject or topic and it seems like their admissions process is very good at uncovering it.

The other thing everyone from there talks (whines) about is the sheer volume of work they are expected to complete, and for that, exams seem like a good (albeit imperfect) proxy for gauging this.

Re: The Oxford maths interview, shaking up admissions

#24

Post by theoh »

technotony wrote: post #9
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 Cambridge interview tested for this explicitly. They gave you 45 minutes to prepare answers to 8 'further maths' type questions, then you had to solve some creative problems at the end. These creative problems required knowledge of further maths concepts but were unusual so you needed time to think about them and develop a mathematical framework for the solution, this therefore tested that you could do the further…

I think you meant to say "if you got that right, then they gave you a stretch stretch question" :-)

Re: The Oxford maths interview, shaking up admissions

#26

Post by OJFord »

tfgg wrote: post #19
reillyse wrote: post #18

I didn't do the A-levels but from my understanding of them I have always thought that they don't seem to discriminate between candidates well enough. That is to say that there just are not enough grades. I think the passing grades you can get are A,B,C or D. Most people who get in to the top universities get straight A's. I think if each of these grades was split in 3 it would make the result a lot more meaningful an…

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 be worried about FM - because if they were worried about anything it would (should) be STEP.

But then, uh, I may be biased...

Re: The Oxford maths interview, shaking up admissions

#27

Post by cgio »

tfgg wrote: post #20
cgio wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I wrong to think that the stretching of the band does not have anything to do with "how far along the band" the mouse will travel? Maybe it's my English as a second language, but my intuition is that the mouse still travels along the band as it expands, and you would probably need a point of reference, e.g. How far along the gap that the elastic band bridges to make the question more challenging.

The mouse is walking along the band, while the end of the band moves away, however the mouse is also being carried along by the expansion of the band. I think the best approach is to think in terms of the fractional coordinate of the mouse along the band, and work out its effective velocity in this coordinate.

The elastic band could expand in both directions or either. If I assume the band expands so fast that I remain at the same point with regards to a point of reference, have I not still moved by 2m along the band after a minute? I guess it's more about the semantics of how moving along the band applies.

Also how the expansion carries the mouse has to do with its movement. E.g. if it's galloping it would not carry it.

Re: The Oxford maths interview, shaking up admissions

#28

Post by harry8 »

fjmubeen wrote: post #14
murkle wrote: post #5

If he thinks exams are a bad indicator... why does Oxford assess its students with... exams?

Very fair question - alas, I did not have the authority to change the system (and, for selfish reasons, would not want to as my exam scores flattered my actual ability). Worth noting that written exams do not feature at all in research. There's a recognition at this level that mathematical understanding can not be captured through blunt testing instruments.

Do you think you're confusing existing "bad exams" with all possible exams?

I don't recall ever sitting an exam with 10 questions where if you got 2 of them out you'd come first. You'd mark such a "hard" paper based on "this is a reasonable avenue of exploration", "this is a good idea that won't work", "this approach will prove ultimately futile but given the student hasn't seen anything like it before it's definitely worth some points."

Why are you trying to achieve just that in an interview?

Research isn't done in interviews any more than research is done by sitting exams. However sitting down and exploring ideas with a pen and paper by yourself is likely closer than "creating an impression" in an interview. An interview where you, the interviewers, are saddled with the irksomeness of having to roughly account and adjust for your bias as much as you can be aware of it (does she really look like a mathematician? I didn't like sportsman Ben's approach as much as bespectacled whoever - is the impression based on the maths alone or is the form of it's presentation fairly important).

The huge advantage of grading an exam is you can exclude all of that gumf we all carry (with differing expressions of it) by simply not knowing who wrote it. Not their name or anything.

The other big win is that if you publish the blessed thing you can make such exams more normal. Budding mathematicians might practise such skills and get better at them, younger.

As it is you're selecting for the children of mathematicians who get such practise at home and excluding the very smart who honed their exam skills alone because that's all they encountered.

I also got very flattering scores on mathematics exams but I wouldn't mistake that for anything beyond my ability to act the student performing seal at that particular game. Any exam where it is remotely possible to get 100% does not test anything like creativity - creativity is the thing that is most important, no?

Re: The Oxford maths interview, shaking up admissions

#29

Post by tragomaskhalos »

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 good indicator of which one an individual actually falls into. In particular, I believe you can be a good jobbing middle-level mathematician by learning the relevant stuff, providing you have the basic aptitude for it, but you need a real gift to be able to cope with the top level, and that's something that an exam format cannot elicit.

Speaking personally, I did an interview at Cambridge, which served the excellent function - for both parties - of determining that I was not in the top group.

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