Tripos tripos

1
Tripos tripos

• Hayden Taylorhkt_at_mit.edu
• web/hkt/www/tripos.ppt
• 23 September 2005

2
Background third-year modules (Part IIA)

• 90-minute exams in late April/early May
• 1 exam per module
• Get all databooks for all exams
• No cheat sheets
• May have 15 mins reading before published start
  time
• Anonymous, marked very quickly

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What are they testing?

• Insight?
• Memory?
• Familiarity?

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Typical exam 3F1 May 2005
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Typical question 3F1 May 2005

• 30 mins to do this

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Time

• The main challenge seems to be to avoid running
  out of time
• In the exams, and
• To prepare for them

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Strategy

• Revision
• Practice papers, timed.When to start? Learning
  when to move on, when to persevere.
• Past papers and cribs online back to
  1996.Should be plenty.Recent modularization
  makes things confusing.
• Be able to do every problem on every examples
  paper
• Caveat sheets?

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During the exam (some personal ideas)

• Comfort
• Plan your time take wristwatch
• Approved calculator(s). No graphical calculators.
• Last few marks extra knowledge?
• Diagrams (exams marked quickly)
• Use as much paper as you need. One side only.
• Think about examiner. Spelling grammar.Stand
  out pen, not pencil. Legibility.

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Grading (EOE)

• Often people think/say theyve bombed.Exams
  wont necessarily make you feel good.
• For Cam. students 1st, 21, 22, 3rd. A First
  requires 70. About 20 engineers get a 1st
  more in EE.Marks are scaled according to
  difficulty. gt50/60 hard.
• For CME marks /60 translated to GPA
• Rough approximation GPA 0.75
  0.092(marks)60/60 implies GPA of 6.27!

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Resources

• Past papers solutionshttp//www.eng.cam.ac.uk/
  DesignOffice/tripos/part2a/index.html (need
  passphrase)web.mit.edu/aristeia/Public/ControlsTr
  ipos (temporarily)
• Exam skills session in March (Dr Geoff Parks?)
• Director of Studies
• Cambridge students but beware self-deprecation
• CUSU (UA) and some colleges run stress-relieving
  events