But this is my Introduction Thread! Well, I am not even sure if you do introduction threads here, but ah well!

Hello guys and girls, My name is Scrunchy (well it isn't really, but my friends call me Scrunchy, and I hate my first name), and I'll be studying MMath at Warwick this year!!! I just need to get the grades, but I'm sure I will, even though I didn't know aaannnnyyy of FP3, lol! I'm sooooooo excited about coming XD Well, I like maths, obviously :) but also dancing and geeking out every once in a while (OK, all the time XD) I don't drink toooooo much, but I love going out and meeting new people. Cant wait to meet all of you!! re there any other people on this forum who will be starting this year?? At first I thought I couldn't join the forum, but then I could.

Also a question, I heard last year that people got a booklet of questions sent to them, to test about A-level maths. Are the questions tricky & do we have to do all of them?? And can you help me on a couple? XD

Signin' off,

Scrunchy

Hello there!

For the most part people on here are already at Warwick, and (sadly) mostly male... But don't let that put you off...You are more than welcome (i say, speaking on behalf of the entire society).

You will indeed be sent some questions by the department... you don't HAVE to do any of them, although you will have a 2hr test in the first week of term. Its in 4 parts: differentiation, integration, inequalities, and trigonometry... I'd say that the hardest is definitely inequalities because you're least used to using these at school.

Personally i found the tests quite hard (i'm a first year at the moment)... but only because i did next to no revision, and the material only really covers integrating/differentiating at C3/4 level, so was heavily out of practice... You do get to retake up to four times however, and you can be confident that if you don't pass first time round that it won't be difficult to pass on the retakes...At the end of the day they're not very important if you don't pass, but they do count for 20% of one of the modules... which means that those tests make up 2% of the year!

I'd say that you shouldn't worry about them, enjoy the summer instead, and maybe do a tiny bit of revision the week before you come up...

We will look forward to meeting you when you arrive (assuming people pass there exams...hmm)!

Owen.

I think I heard it said that the diagnostic tests will be done slightly differently this year. They are getting rid of inequalities but are reducing the number of re-takes people can do.

Traditionally the exam is on the first Wednesday of term 1. The department should/will send out all the details once results are all sorted. As noted above, you don't have to do the questions you are sent, but they are very good revision and usually "similar" questions turn up on the actual tests.

If I had a nickel everytime someone said they heard the department say something about this and that, well I wouldn't be wasting my time posting here that's for sure. Not that I doubt you, I'm just amused by the number of rumours that seem to circulate regarding re-takes etc.

Richard, look at the facebook page about the (current year's!) Algebra II petition and note that the above information was said by a (certain) member of staff - assuming the logistics can be sorted.

Ok, I'll post the relevant bit:

"Diagnostic tests: ... next year there will be only three topics (inequalities is being dropped again) and only one resit for each.. if we can sort out the logistics! That's something I've fought for this year because I realised that the tests just make people learn how to pass the resits and then they forget it."

That probably makes it a little stronger than a rumour. Of course it is not finalised so I didn't want to state it as fact above, but it looks pretty likely.

To the OP: As a tip, if nothing else, I would suggest revising integration techniques. This catches most people out (i.e forgetting partial fractions, correct substitutions etc). But if you are comfortable with the A-level syllabus (which you seem to be) then you should not have a problem. It may seem a little extreme to throw you in at the deep end with a test straight away, but I think the department likes to make sure everyone hasn't forgotten everything over the summer! Plus you always have that exam at the start of term 2 to worry about...

whoa!! slow down (and i quote)

Not that I doubt you

Wasn't having a go. I just like the fact so many people seem to have stories about what the department says about this, and whether you have to retake that and so on. I don't care if any of them are true or not as I don't intend to be in such a position during my time here.

I know you didn't doubt me, but I began to doubt myself. I knew I'd seen something somewhere but couldn't remember where!

As I said, nothing is 100% finalised yet but the OP wants to know what is going on etc, so I thought it best to be as open as possible.

I also enjoy rumours about resits etc. Fact is, I don't think anyone really knows!

While we're at it, lets quote something from Dave Wood:

"On the plus side, the second year is very different from the first. You are not asked to resit any core module that is failed, but are only asked to do resits if you have failed the whole year (Seymour putting you below a pass degree, or all core modules failed)."

I feel that the inequalities test was a good introduction to the things that you had not seen before coming to uni (and couldn't be arsed doing during the summer holidays). I'm sad to see it dropped (the only one I didn;t get first time). I personally feel the diagnosics test was a necessary evil and it is not a good thing that it has been dropped. I also think that Alegebra 2 should have been "easier" to help differentiate between people taking it.

Sounds like you're quite bitter about that test to be bringing it up here :P (understandably). Inequalities really shouldn't be dropped simply because so many people fail it. How do you expect to cope with analysis if you can't do inequalities?

That's the idea of the test though, you need to be able to do it to do Analysis.