Key Points from Rebecca Cotton-Barratt's Network session:
- Increasing numbers of university maths departments are requiring or encouraging additional examinations.
- Two reasons:
- there are so many students getting A* in both Maths and Further Maths that further discrimination is needed.
- universities would like students to tackle more challenging, university-style mathematics before they start their degree courses.
- The new TMUA is required by Durham, and will enhance applications to several other universities, including Lancaster, Sheffield and Southampton.
- Preparation for both the TMUA and the MAT (Oxford, Imperial and an option for Warwick) needs to start in y12. Both exams are in early November of y13, so leaving it until September of y13 does not allow students sufficient time to prepare.
- The TMUA seems to be aimed as much at A grade students as A* ones, and as the number of past papers increases, this will become a valuable resource for general class use.
- The TMUA includes formal logic, which again is a very useful enrichment topic for all students, from well before sixth form. (Try 'Who tells the truth' from Tarquin as a starting point.)
- STEP is set and marked by Cambridge, who set the grade boundaries. They make roughly twice as many offers as places, so an offer from Cambridge is no guarantee at all of a place. Students still have to compete against all the other applicants, and the grade boundaries are set to ensure the right number of students get places.
- STEP is valued by many other universities, and all students intending to read mathematics at university (as well as many who don't) will benefit from working towards this, and/or the MAT and TMUA, whether or not they actually sit the exam in the end.
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