Cambridge University used to do entrance exams (as well as looking at A-Level results). Then they ditched them. Now they are making a comeback.
If you've not seen these in the press already, here are some sample questions. Could you have done these at 16/17/18? I'd probably have been struggling, but then I see the real exam papers (after the exams!) quite often these days and still think "you what with the what now?" for most of them anyway. Which is as it should be.
I expect these would be trivial for some. Have a crack if you like.
1) Calves farmed for veal are reared in extremely cruel conditions and have a short and miserable life. Other meats are available, such as lamb, and meat-eaters who are concerned about cruelty to animals should avoid veal and consume one of these alternatives.
Which one of the following is an underlying assumption of the above argument?
A. Animals should be allowed to live as long as possible before being eaten.
B. Calves should not be reared for consumption of their meat.
C. The methods used to rear other animals are not equally cruel.
D. Animals have a right to be treated humanely.
E. Meat-eaters who are concerned with cruelty to animals do not eat veal.
2) There are any number of theories to explain these events and, since even the experts disagree, it is ---- the rest of us in our role as responsible scholars to ---- dogmatic statements.
Each of the following pairs of words can be inserted into the blanks, but which pair makes the best sense?
A.Paradoxical for… refrain from
B.Arrogant of… compensate from
C.Appropriate for… abstain from
D.Incumbent on… issue forth
3) Albert says: 'Everything Caroline says is true.' Betty says: 'Everything I say is false.' Caroline says: 'Everything David says is true.' David says: 'Everything Caroline says is false.'
Who is the only one who could be telling the truth?
A. Albert
B.Betty
C. Caroline
D. David
4) Compose an essay on the writer George Orwell's observation that 'there are some ideas so wrong that only an intelligent person could believe in them'
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I do hope the real questions are better written than these.
1. The correct answer is 'C' (according to the Mail) but C as a sentence doesn't make sense. It is a comparative that has no comparison, it requires an 'as veal' at the end of it. What C actually (almost) says is (assuming 'other' to refer to animals other than veal) "The methods used to raise lamb and pork are not equally cruel." I therefore think D is a better answer than C.
2. 'Any number' is a singular noun that should take the singular verb 'is'. I also don't understand why they have used capital letters for 'Paradoxical', 'Arrogant' etc.
There's another rather good visual one on the Mail website. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3750961/Cambridge-brings-written-entrance-exam-30-years-in.html
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You can have 80 marks for these real 2015 exam questions if you prefer something with more sets appeal, Mapmaker? I think I'll just sit and dribble though.
Give examples of the following:
i. A set with exactly one subset.
ii. A set with exactly one proper subset.
iii. A set of which at least one member is also a subset.
iv. Two sets whose Cartesian product has exactly six members.
v. A set whose power set has the set containing the empty set as a
member.
vi. A set whose intersection with its own powerset is not empty.
vii. A non-empty (and finite!) set whose members include all members
of its own members.
viii. A set whose members are all sets.
‘Consider the claim that murder is wrong and 3 > 2 because God freely
determined that murder is wrong and 3 > 2. Some people object that we can’t
imagine how God could possibly have made murder right or 3 < 2. That’s not
a weighty objection because it would have been easy for God to have created
us as unable to wrap our minds around these possibilities.’
Evaluate this response to the objection.
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....give us a chance, CC. I'm still writing the George Orwell essay.......
;-)
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A levels (then called Higher Certificates) were not enough for Cambridge in my day and I took (and failed) a supplementary exam set by them. Most of the questions were on similar lines to the HC's but there was a general paper which could spring tasks such as "Give an outline of the Trans-Siberian Railway scheme for 1916". The Orwell question should not be too hard for a history student.
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The alternative question:
The following is the list of vehicles bought and sold by Stu in the last 10 years, together with the dates, prices paid and amounts received on disposals.
[insert info here]
Evaluate the purchases and rank in descending order according to the most relevant criteria you can suggest. Ignore running costs.
Supplementary (bonus) question:
Now re-evaluate using man-maths as your criteria.
Compare and contrast the results.
If you can also quote all Stu's forum log in names during this period then you probably need to get a life.
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>> Cambridge University used to do entrance exams (as well as looking at A-Level results). Then
>> they ditched them. Now they are making a comeback.
My daughter didn't take an entrance exam but did have a searching interview for Cambridge (in c. 1999).
The interview as described to me afterwards seemed to have much the same objective as those questions, i.e. to assess the applicant's ability to think. Verbal reasoning tests such as the first two questions are presumably much easier to administer than face-to-face questioning.
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In my day (1969) there were six ways of getting into Cambridge:
A-levels. Not valued much on their own.
S-levels. A sort of super-A level, and counted for a lot in conjunction with A levels
Entrance exams
Scholarship/Exhibition exams
Interview
Being outstandingly good at certain sports.
It was understood that there were no correct answers to the exam questions, and merely answering "C" or "D"would have secured no marks. Everything hung on the reasoning leading up to the conclusion, which could be brilliant even if the "wrong" answer.
An interview could sometimes trump everything. One boy at my school, who had already jumped a year, was invited for interview on the English master's recommendation while still in the lower sixth, and was awarded an unconditional place. In theory he could have abandoned A levels and just bummed around for a few years until he decided to go up.
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Also scientists and those who hadn't taken English A-level were required to take Use of English, a special exam somewhere in between O and A level.
Plus everyone had to have Latin O-level.
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Crikey, this is blast from the past stuff. I remember having to take "Use of English", although I was doing English A-Level, as well as Maths (and Physics and something incredibly dreary called Economics with Political Applications). No idea why that happened. Also some sort of S-Level thingy (or thingies maybe) too.
I'd forgotten all that horror, especially as I was entirely hopeless at all of them without exception.
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Your daughter and my son must have been studying there at the same time Manatee...the interview was so nerve wracking for us as parents but he was confident in his abilities and had set his heart on Cambridge and got in to Sidney Sussex.
I honestly think that a face to face interview is much the best way to sort out those who can think on their feet from those who are coached to pass exams.
Last edited by: helicopter on Mon 22 Aug 16 at 15:08
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I recall my own interview as not very stretching. A bit disappointing really. I was given a turbine blade (not that I recognised it as one) and had to make some intelligent comments about it.
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IIRC several RedBrick Universities also wanted "Use of English" for science and maths undergraduates in around 1965. I cannot think of any other reason why we were all encouraged to take it.
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I was always hopeless at Latin because I didn't like it and was pretty idle. Failed O Level three times but had to take it again at 17 having won an open exhibition - a sort of low-grade scholarship - to an Oxford college.
Scraped through in the end, but not before getting quite a severe beating from the Jesuits who ran my last school. A bit infra-dig at 17, that. What's more I got chucked out of Oxford for idleness after a year. I didn't mind that for myself, but my poor parents were very upset. I was a tiresome little hooligan TBH.
The 'university of life' gave me a couple of bad habits.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 22 Aug 16 at 15:40
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>> I was always hopeless at Latin because I didn't like it and was pretty idle.
There was, almost, a time when every educated person in Europe and possibly the world had a means of communication independent of any one national language.
A lost opportunity, as education became more widespread.
Then Islam retreated into the dark ages, and the remnants of Christianity became mercenary, lazy and decadent. Latin's usefulness was probably over with the death of Isaac Newton.
(Cambridge entrance exam - discuss :) )
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The Vatican continues to publish its documents in Latin, so it is still a living language, just about. Pope Benedict's resignation was first reported by a journalist with a command of Latin.
I really wish, in retrospect, I had read Classics (or at least a bit of me thinks I do). There's a point in the Chilcot report - and I can't find the reference despite several minutes' Googling - where the spook being interviewed quotes (I think) Homer in Greek and receives a Homeric response. It makes one feel tremendously ignorant.
I reckon a science degree is pretty useless post hoc; much of one's learning is out of date before one has finished writing one's final examination paper, and it is certainly of no use in daily conversation.
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Might I perhaps recommend this, Mapmaker? I'm enjoying it a lot and even after a few sections you can stumble about with a bit of New Testament translation for fun.
An easy bit of fun to get a smattering.
Peter Jones (not THAT one) did a Latin one too, which Mrs C is working through while I do the Greek one.
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0715627589
Edit
Whilst on recommendations, if you are Papal person, you mighty also enjoy John Julius Norwich's book about the Popes, which is a rollicking good read.
www.amazon.co.uk/Popes-Viscount-John-Julius-Norwich/dp/0099565870/
Last edited by: Crankcase on Tue 23 Aug 16 at 11:09
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>>>I reckon a science degree is pretty useless post hoc; - <<<
Surely the value of a science degree is in the learning of scientific method and thinking.
I believe that the value of an engineering degree is to promote an analytic approach to problem solving.
I have met more than a few people however who believe that the learnt knowledge is the key to gaining a good degree - and I unfortunately suspect that they are correct - however I do not believe that this necessarily stands them in good stead for future progression.
My conclusion is however based on my historic experience - and think that todays watered down education, with tick box assessment criteria applied at an ever increasing professional level does nobody any favours. Other than creating an ever expanding pool of over qualified shelf stackers :)
>>>, and it is certainly of no use in daily conversation.<<<
You could apply that to Latin degree as well! But maybe it just reflects on my circle of friends.
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>>Surely the value of a science degree is in the learning of scientific method and thinking.
>I believe that the value of an engineering degree is to promote an analytic approach to problem solving.
The older I become, the people who impress me the most by virtue of their ability to argue a position analytically are historians and classicists. Indeed, my own trade - tax - recruits many historians and classicists for just this reason, despite perhaps an expectation that facility with numbers would be more useful. The Bar (and indeed the Law in general) is full of such types for the same reason.
Few engineers have the breadth of knowledge that historians and classicists do.
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If I have to pick a set that consistently impresses me with members who are able to grasp facts, understand, rapidly analyse a position and then discuss, I would undoubtably pick baristers. I sometimes find find it hard to believe that these individuals have risen from the same group that provides us with solicitors! Although I would guess that the initial law qualification had been obtained from study in a somewhat more 'classic' institution.
You used the expression 'breadth of knowledge' to support your earlier statement of "by virtue of their ability to argue a position analytically are historians and classicists". Surely it is not the 'knowledge' that they have aquired - its the development of the ability to analyse and present?
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"The Vatican continues to publish its documents in Latin, so it is still a living language, just about."
Not really - technically, for a language to be categorised as living, it needs to have a reasonable number of speakers of it as a first language. That has not been the case for many centuries with Latin; and even before Vulgar Latin morphed into the various Romance languages, Classical Latin was a kind of fossilised, so-called "pure" form of the language even while the Roman Empire was in its heyday, reserved for literary and other artistic or scholarly purposes.
It is interesting (to me, anyway) that it was the dynamic - living, spoken - form of the language that arguably made the greater impact on the world, as it spawned Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, and all the literature that was written in those languages, not forgetting the impact that it had on English - second-hand, via the French of the Norman conquerors.
A later feed into an even greater range of languages came when Europe rediscovered Classical culture in what is called the Renaissance, where not only Latin but Greek contributed mainly vocabulary to the recipients - and this was from Classical, not Vulgar Latin.
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I was informed that there are Latin radio broadcasts and publications.
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Don't forget Irish bingo where they call the numbers out in Latin so the Catholics win.
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Cambridge Entrance exams - Mapmaker
