Education

The Student Room | Pyoro

I busted my back studying for 6 years from GCSEs to undergrad, so figured I’d drop my results here to mark that achievement

Homework

GCSE (Summer 2011)

These were all IGCSE except DT and Latin were GCSE iirc. Top grade was A* (for all but the FSMQ) then A

Subject Exam Board Grade Score% Score Breakdown
Latin OCR A* 99% 396/400 100/100, 100/100, 98/100, 98/100
Spanish Edexcel A* 99% 99/100 30/30, 59/60 (+ B Oral – 40/60)
Maths Edexcel A* 99% 99/100 97/100, 100/100
DT Edexcel A* 95% 190/200 120/120, 70/80
French Edexcel A* 94% 94/100 28/30, 57/60 (+A* Oral – 54/60)
Chemistry Edexcel A* 89% 161/180 109/120, 52/60
Biology Edexcel A* 87% 156/180 106/120, 50/60
Physics Edexcel A* 84% 152/180 100/120, 52/60
English CIE A* ?    
History CIE A* ?    
English Literature CIE A ?    

FSMQ: Additional Maths | OCR | A | 98% | 98/100

A-Level (Winter/Summer 2013)

Top grade was A* (for all but the FSMQ) then A. Asterisks denote exams done on 25% extra time

Maths | OCR | A* | 99% | 595/600 (each module /100)

Further Maths | OCR | A* | 94% | 565/600 (each module /100)

Physics | Edexcel | A* | 94% | 561/600

(each module except coursework (C) /120 normalised and /80 raw; coursework half on both)

Economics | AQA | A | 90% | 358/400 (each module /100)

STEP

Cambridge maths undergrad admissions exam; graded S,1,2,3,U, with an offer nominally 1/1 in II,III, but with a bit of fudging accepted (each module /120). Original papers

So that’s a 2/S that was, in fact, 1 point under and 1 point over their nearest grade boundaries (with a grade 1) respectively

Legends were born in June 2013

University (2013–2016)

Cambridge maths undergrad (Tripos). From my TSR bio:

i am not here anymore. i advised people with step and maths undergrad at cambridge until late 2017, and then realised i was encouraging people to subject themselves to the levels of overwork that contributed to ruining my own life. i would advise all but the most gifted and/or well-adjusted to consider oxford and warwick instead. it’s better to tend to every part of your life and experience than it is to be ambitious about something like this

It is undoubtedly cool to have taken on one of the world’s most historic and hardest maths degrees and gotten a decent result, tho. It’s funny that such an important part of one’s life as a degree has a history involving a “heroic period” and such a fucked-up high-stakes exam scoring system… but it was exhilarating all the same to sit those exams

I ran a huge lecture note repository during my time

1st Year (IA) 50 on the universal scale (bottom 2:2 class, borderline 3)

You could see my downward spiral in first year from my tutorial self-assessments, and a week before exams, I gave up and set myself free to focus on 2nd year

2nd Year (IB) 65 on the universal scale (mid 2:1 class)

3rd Year (II) 61 on the universal scale (low 2:1 class)

I think I might have not received a full breakdown, or lost it. I have a preliminary summary tho

347 raw | 10α + 2β | 537 merit

(merit mark = raw + 5 × β + 15 × α [first 8 αs] + 30 × α [any additional αs])

Course Raw α β
Linear Analysis 73 3 1
Graph Theory 54 3 0
Automata and Formal Languages 36 2 0
Number Fields 31 1 1
Topics in Analysis 24 1 0
Number Theory 3 0 0

Computational projects (total): 126

I remember my main courses had high alpha rates (proportion of attempts that score ≥15/20), so I was carried. They were AFL 83%, NF 79%, LA 73%, GT 69%. Alpha rates are intended to target 50–60% iirc

My year was also “thought to be” the last ever of the traditional class list ceremony, where every third-year’s (private) grade classification (as in 2.1 for me) was (publicly) announced in the Senate House. I have no idea if it actually was or wasn’t the last time as the Our Grade Our Choice controversy continued until 2018