<p>Seriously, those "devious" ways in which the perlim papers twist and turn are not the "key skills" in the syllabus nor they are important skills in the long run. Like for RJC chem for example, the consistently try to test things that are only at the border of the syllabus. Difficulty and quality of are different things. Difficulty means how many student fail it, easy, just set crazy questions and that's it.</p>
<p>It is very hard to produce a quality exam, however. Exams are meant to separate candidates into different levels of achievement, and the best exam would be one that maps the candidate's real ability perfectly. A person who's knowledge is indeed 90 percentile relative to his classmates should receive marks that is also 90 percentile, if the exam is perfect in quality. To do that, most exams have 1. gradual increase in difficulty of questions 2. stepped questions (i.e., part a, b c ...) 3. choices in some parts but mandatory questions in others 4. time constraint. </p>
<p>Getting 1. and 2. right are very difficult. Seriously, when the JC set a particular question, I doubt they can estimate very accurately the distribution of marks for that question (i.e., how many percent of the candidates is going to score how many marks or above... distribution). Also, they need to estimate the time taken as well, eg, 70% of the candidates would complete the question in how many minutes. Hence if you look at the past A-lvl questions, they are pretty restrained and measured, you can actually feel it. Also, some questions would appear to be extremely similar to another question in a past paper. These questions are what they call "equating" question and would be used to determine the grade cut-off for that particular year.</p>
<p>What I am trying to say is that there are more to an Cambridge exam than that meets the eye. Definitely, the top 5 JC perlim questions may look more devious, but there are definitely far more considerations going on for the Cambridge one. Setting mad exams are easy, setting exams of considered and measured difficulty, just at the right level, is very difficult.</p>
<p>Also, the perlim questions lacks originality. They are all basically sexed up versions of past Cambridge papers. Why they tried to be devious, the "devious" way is not the "key tested skills" that the syllabus requires.</p>
<p>So you want difficult and high quality exam? I would suggest the Special Papers as they are really very original and very well set, and they test skills that matters, not useless stuff. Look at 04 physics S (if i didn't rmb wrongly, not my year), there was a question where they guide us to prove that if the polaroid were placed one after another, with infinitely gradual variation in the plane of polarisation, then it is possible to twist the light perpendicularly, with zero energy lost. (Recall if you place two polaroid one after another with the plane of polarisation perpendicular to each other, the light would not pass thru.) Yes, that question is very very difficult, definitely way more difficult than the harder questions of physics perlim papers. (esp. when they need us to take a limit...) But note 1. the question is novel 2. we are proving some important result, not stupid stuff sexed up from past papers 3. it is within our syllabus.</p>
<p>American colleges give unconditional offers which means you can literally score as low as you can possible fathom and still gain admissions without your offer being rescinded. However, with universities in the UK, you are given conditional offers for example:</p>
<p>If you are applying to engineering at UCL and you’re doing the IB Diploma</p>
<p>They’d require like a 7/6/6 in your HLs which should be CHEM/PHYSICS AND Math.</p>
<p>For your cumulative grade they’ll stipulate your marks, take for example UCL, they might ask for a 42/45. If you get a even a 41, they rescind your offer.</p>
<p>Simple answer to this question, UK universities do not receive less applications at all. The reason it seems to you that it is easy to get into UK universities is that they concentrate heavily on grades. In the US the application process is far more subjective. In other words, say you had 45 points at IB, you easily get into UK universities, however US universities look at more than just grades. Therefore coming from a place like India, Pakistan or China (where many internationals apply from), loads of people have amazing grades but not so great ECs.</p>
<p>In the UK, you can only apply to five universities, and entry requirements are clearly laid out-there’s no point applying to a course which requires AAA at a minimum if you only have AAB, you will immediately be rejected. It’s a waste of a uni choice when you only have five. There’s far less subjectivity when it comes to UK admissions so people “self-select” to a degree. This is why Oxbridge have a higher acceptance rate than Edinburgh and Bristol-fewer people apply to Oxbridge because of the high requirements.
Harvard and the other good American universities get a far far higher volume of applications from a lot of people who realistically have no chance of an offer, because you can apply to any number of universities and admissions are a lot more holistic which gives people hope. Thus the admissions statistics are skewed. American universities also look at (imo) irrelevant things like extracurricuars and “leadership”, and you don’t have to demonstrate academic commitment to a course so much, because you apply to the uni not the course. This isn’t the case in the UK.</p>
<p>As for international reputation, I’d say Oxbridge and Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Stanford/MIT are extremely well respected all around the world, even if Oxbridge is “easier” to get into, they require a high level of commitment to the course that American unis simply don’t consider. Honestly I’d say colleges like Northwestern/Amherst/Wellesleyan, though well regarded in the US, don’t really register on an international level. Maybe that’s just me.</p>
<p>Is this likely the reasons why more students apply to US: They may want to see if they could land a job in US after graduation and eventually immigrate here? After all, US is more an immigration country and their companies are open-minded about accepting internationals (maybe as long as they are higher quality and slightly “lower price.”) The ranking of a school is not as important as long as you can land a job.</p>
<p>I absolutely agree UK universities (barring Oxbridge) are significantly easier to get into than the US. With 3A*s, I was rejected from all the US universities I applied to (top 20) after working so hard on my applications (I’m a US citizen btw), and easily got into UCL etc. with hardly any effort on those applications. Considering people with AAB can get into places like UCL (which is usually top 5 in the UK) and similar shows the caliber of some students that can get in. In comparison, some of these people would never be able to get into even the top 50 in the US. Even at Oxbridge, I can guarantee a lot of those that get in would never even be able to get into a lower ranked school in the US like Washington St. Louis or Rice.</p>
<p>Of course, US universities take into account standardized testing and extra curriculars which UK students will inevitably be weaker at. Regardless, generally in the UK if you have the grades that meet the requirements (usually AAB-AAA) you will get an offer. To me it seems like there’s Oxbridge (which isn’t even as selective as some lower ranked schools in the US) and then there’s the rest which are pretty easy to get into.</p>