Schols Schols Schols, information and venting thread.

Jim_Are_Great

Podge_irl wrote: »

Nope. They're scholarship exams. They're not supposed to be there just to give people the opportunity to take their exams early and have a nice summer break. Scholarship is a very old tradition in Trinity (the oldest really), part of the ethos of them is that it is supposed to be people putting themselves forward for application to scholarship. There isn't meant to be a consolation prize.

Exemptions are an incentive for people to put themselves forward for scholarship. Fewer people would (will) do it without the possibility to get exemptions. I think it's more virtuous, in so many ways, to encourage greater participation than to uphold 'tradition'.

JC 2K3

Podge_irl wrote: »

Nope. They're scholarship exams. They're not supposed to be there just to give people the opportunity to take their exams early and have a nice summer break. Scholarship is a very old tradition in Trinity (the oldest really), part of the ethos of them is that it is supposed to be people putting themselves forward for application to scholarship. There isn't meant to be a consolation prize.

How pretentious.

bright

No JC, Im in SF, I decided not to transfer in the end. It has worked out well i'm enjoying what I study now- now that, as a result of schols., I actually study it.

First down, six to go.

After my first exam, I was walking passed the notice board in the GMB and I saw my name on the exam list and my seat number for an exam in public policy that I thought was on Friday. Embarrassingly, I asked one of the invigilators and she brought me in to sit down it was only when I saw that it was 2 hours and not three that I realised it was the term test for sf public policy and not the schol exam. Breathed a massive sigh of re

It hadn't moved. That was good as I hadn't studied. It was, however, living a nightmare, only short of realising I was in my underwear.

Shocker.

Podge_irl

JC 2K3 wrote: »

How pretentious.

They're scholarship exams, not exemptions exams. I would have been perfectly happy if I had to go on and do summer exams after getting schols (okay, perfectly happy is an exaggeration). The exams aren't supposed to be part of the normal end-year exams, they're supposed to be a seperate entity. I don't understand why the notion that people should actually have to sit their yearly exams seems so unfair to people.

JC 2K3

It wouldn't be unfair in the slightest.

I just don't understand what your problem is with a department recognising that a student capable of getting above 60% in a scholarship exam is worthy of progressing to the next year without having to take summer exams.

Podge_irl

JC 2K3 wrote: »

I just don't understand what your problem is with a department recognising that a student capable of getting above 60% in a scholarship exam is worthy of progressing to the next year without having to take summer exams.

I don't disagree with the fact that a student capable of getting 60% in a scholarship exam is "worthy" of progressing to the next year. I simply think that scholarship exams should be completely seperate entities from year-end exams. I apologise if this is going to sound pretentious, but the ethos of scholarship is that students put in the hard work and dedication to take extra exams to test themselves above and beyond the run of the mill college grind. The incentive is supposed to be the award of scholarship. It's not supposed to be a way for students to just get a longer summer, its diluting the point of scholarship (and pisses lecturers off when people don't turn up in Trinity Term).

tolosenc

Excemptions are equally part of the tradition.

Liquorice

I think exemptions level the playing field a bit. Firstly, for people who might be a bit hard-pushed financially; if a person has to give up work in order to prepare for schols, it means that even if they don't get the full scholarship, they might still have an extra few weeks to work during the summer instead of doing exams, which gives them extra incentive to go for schols. Secondly, for girls; I hate to make broad, essentialising statements about half of the campus, but looking at the list of current scholars and the list of people from my courses taking schols, it's definitely male-dominated, even in predominantly female courses. It could be a competition thing, and if it is, there's a consolation prize so that 'winning' isn't the be-all incentive to take schols.

AGH WHY I AM I HERE. I have an exam in under twelve hours.

tolosenc

Jim_Are_Great wrote: »

Hah, no - It goes full name, father's name, place of birth, secondary school.
... for some reason.

So, would I write:

Ricardus Gallus Rex, Gallus Occidentalis Rex, Dublinae, Scolae Publicum Nessanum; or just in English?

JC 2K3

I thought you were proclaiming yourself as a king, and then I realised....

Podge_irl

Liquorice wrote: »

Secondly, for girls; I hate to make broad, essentialising statements about half of the campus, but looking at the list of current scholars and the list of people from my courses taking schols, it's definitely male-dominated, even in predominantly female courses. It could be a competition thing, and if it is, there's a consolation prize so that 'winning' isn't the be-all incentive to take schols.

Guys are over-represented in terms of scholarships awarded because the sciences are over-represented by nature of the fact that its easier to get schols in them. I don't think the disparity is that large and I certainly can't think of many female dominated courses with predominantly male scholars.

Excemptions are equally part of the tradition.

No they aren't. Schols has been around as long as the college itself (though in a fairly different form I will grant you).

A fair number of third year students take schols every year and don't have any chance of getting exemptions, and indeed have to study something entirely different for their subsequent examinations. The very fact that a student can take it in any year bares out the fact that they are not the same as year-end exams. Its only a comparatively recent phenomenon that they reflect the year-end exams so closely.

This is all reasonably immaterial anyway. There is no feasible way to maintain exemptions with the restructuring of the scholarship exams (there are also issues with the ECTS system apparently).

Karlusss

Didn't they only invent written exams in Cambridge at the end of the eighteenth century?

JC 2K3

Bah, hardest Maths schol exam for the last number of years....

I still reckon I got over 70, but not comfortably.

Onward to programming on Monday....

Sir Ophiuchus

Ooof, Social Psychology did NOT go well for me.

One pretty good answer, one quite bad answer.

Still, I'm pretty sure I got a good first in my critical and cultural theory exam for English, and Social Psych is the topic I'm worst at, so Psychology will only get better from here. I'm still on track.

Karlusss

JC 2K3 wrote: »

I still reckon I got over 70, but not comfortably.

Life is hard for some...

JC 2K3

That's a bit harsh. When you're aiming for over 70 overall and the difficulty of each exam differs, it makes sense to be ideally aiming for, for example, 80 in some and 60 in others....

Jim_Are_Great

JC 2K3 wrote: »

That's a bit harsh. When you're aiming for over 70 overall and the difficulty of each exam differs, it makes sense to be ideally aiming for, for example, 80 in some and 60 in others....

For some of us, 80 is pretty much an impossibility.

JC 2K3

But you're in a completely different course to me*, you have no idea of what exams I'm sitting and what are achievable targets in these exams, you can't compare...

Also, I hate the attitude of one belittling another's disappointment because their expectations/targets are higher than theirs...

*AFAIK...

tolosenc

JC 2K3 wrote: »

I still reckon I got over 70, but not comfortably.

I got between 60 and 80, depending on how lenient Wilkins is, given it was the hardest paper for years. Given there are only 3 of us going for it seriously, that may reflect well. That or me and you get compared to Stephen and the rest just get thrown in a pile, which is not good.

JC 2K3

Mmm... Hard to tell really...

I'm just hoping they didn't up the difficulty of all the exams because so many signed up to do them...

claire h

Karlusss wrote: »

Didn't they only invent written exams in Cambridge at the end of the eighteenth century?

c. 1820s I believe. In the early 19th c Trinity students were still being examined by oral exams and on a cumulative system rather than the third/fourth year = harder everything that we have now. I don't remember when it was that being a Scholar was distinct from being a student (I mean when in history, was not personally alive at time) but 'Schols as tradition' really needs to take into account all that jazz.

Exemptions are fabulous fabulous things. I am always sceptical about those who claim that loads of people do the exams 'just' to get exemptions; I know that for some people having that potential lesser goal makes it a lot easier to sit the things and to not be put off at the least problematic exam because it's not an all-or-nothing situation. Plus, as courses in Trinity are designed at present, the first two years are supposed to provide a 'broad base' of knowledge before the more specialised sophister years (not sure how this works out across faculties in practice but it is in theory how it's supposed to go), so letting students with a II.1+ in the Schol exams off the exams intended to prove they're ready to go on to more specialised study in their subject(s) seems like a sensible idea.

Annnnyway. Continued good-luck vibiness to you all. Stay calm. Ish.

Karlusss

JC 2K3 wrote: »

That's a bit harsh. When you're aiming for over 70 overall and the difficulty of each exam differs, it makes sense to be ideally aiming for, for example, 80 in some and 60 in others....

I wasn't being snappy or anything, it was meant in a good-natured way. I should have thrown in a or maybe a :pac:.

Yeah, I meant mainly that it's pretty rare to get more than 70 in the course I do. And seeing as I'm pretty confident I didn't get 70 in my first exam, I was wishing I could get 80 in the next one to make up for it.

Podge_irl

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Bah, hardest Maths schol exam for the last number of years....

I still reckon I got over 70, but not comfortably.

Onward to programming on Monday....

My 241 exam was several orders of magnitude harder then the previous year. I ended up getting a mark that was higher then conceivable possible given the number of questions I answered. There is always the possibility that exams will get marked upwards (especially in schols) so try not to worry about it and just move on with the rest of your exams.

tolosenc

Signed the book today.

What were the Latin phrases used? Ego, filius, natum in something, an something else...

Brods

What's this book thing? I've sat 2 exams and have seen no book... Must be because those exams were term exams that count for schols rather than solely schol exams.

Liquorice

Just popping in to say that I hope everyone's happy so far, and best wishes for next week. I think I'm happy, I certainly had a good exam today and yesterday; don't think I've been consistently (or at all) at my full potential but it's rare for that to happen in exams when there's time pressure and that sort of scary stuff. I'd like to jump in with approximate marks but I honestly don't have a clue if I'm at 55, 65 or 75. Bloody orts essay exams.

Good luck again everybody!

rjt

Brods wrote: »

What's this book thing? I've sat 2 exams and have seen no book... Must be because those exams were term exams that count for schols rather than solely schol exams.

I haven't signed the book yet either, and I've sat an exam that was solely for schols. Maybe you only sign it once (and so you'll probably see it in a later exam)?

scruttocks

nah i've signed it three times at this point. One exam did it at the start, another they brought it around, the third everyone had to sign at the end (I got my mate to do it for me)

antiselfdual

rjt wrote: »

I haven't signed the book yet either, and I've sat an exam that was solely for schols.

I heard Simms fails you if you don't sign the book during his exam.

Edit: actually he fails you if you don't sign any number of books.

Sir Ophiuchus

Liquorice wrote: »

I think I'm happy, I certainly had a good exam today and yesterday; don't think I've been consistently (or at all) at my full potential but it's rare for that to happen in exams when there's time pressure and that sort of scary stuff. I'd like to jump in with approximate marks but I honestly don't have a clue if I'm at 55, 65 or 75. Bloody orts essay exams.

This. It seems very difficult to tell how they mark English papers, say. There seems to be a reluctance to give "first" marks higher than around 70 which makes it almsot impossible for Arts students to average a first.

That being said, two of today's three questions were fantastic.