A-Level Physics Tutoring

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Cambridge University has just announced that it’s starting an online learning programme to help 6^th form students with A-level Physics to prepare them for their University entry (Details Here). The 5 year project is funded by a £7 million grant from the Department of Education. My department has been worried for several years by the limited knowledge of students entering the University and in particular, their ability to solve complex problems independently rather than just regurgitate lots of facts.  Biological science departments run catch up lectures in mathematics to help students cope with the rigours of academic life. It’s a poor indictment of the education system that it is necessary for Universities to bring A-level students up to the appropriate standard for higher education. A “one fits all” A-level exam cannot adequately test the full range of abilities of all the students and push the more capable students to achieve their full potential.

A-level Exams Mark Schemes

I have discussed before the problem that Universities have in identifying the brightest students amongst the increased proportion that are achieving A grades. There has been considerable debate about whether the relentless annual improvement in grades is due to a general “dumbing down” of the exams. I have been looking at some of this year’s Biology A2 exam papers and I do not believe that the exams are becoming easier. The exam questions today seem better designed to test knowledge and critical thinking compared to the A-level questions 20-years ago which mainly tested knowledge. So why are students doing so much better than before? I think the problem lies in the highly prescribed mark schemes that the examination boards publish for each paper. These are required to allow examiners to mark each paper with a level of consistency but it also means that the students tend to revise the mark schemes rather than the subject itself. The number of questions that can be asked by the exam boards is somewhat limited and similar questions crop up year after year. The students learn the key points on the mark scheme for these questions and get full marks. Some students even believe that if a key point is not on the mark scheme, then it is not correct even though it might be a correct biological point. There are a few ways in which exam boards could improve the exams to allow a better discrimination of each student. Firstly, new questions need to be set each year that have not been used before so that there is no published mark scheme available. Secondly, the questions should try to get the students to reason/think and come up with sensible answers that might not be included in the syllabus. Examiners should be prepared to accept sensible answers even if they are not on the official mark scheme. AQA questions asking for a “suggested” answer are good at this. Finally, horror of horrors, perhaps the exam boards should stop publishing mark schemes so that the students have to revise the subject rather than the answers just like we had to do in the past.

Exam Marking

Deep in the middle of marking undergraduate exam essays. This can be quite challenging, particularly when the hand-writing is difficult to read. Students are told to write legibly and "those who do not may find themselves at a grave disadvantage". Students will not actually lose marks if an examiner cannot read their writing but they may not gain marks either. Examiners are only human after all, and if they cannot read a particular word, how can you get a mark for it? Examiners have a large number of essays to read through in a short period of time and those that can be easily read are more likely to acquire the marks in they make the appropriate points.  Examples of the wide range of handwriting styles are shown.

University Entrance Grade Offers

Next year’s intake of bright-eyed and bushy tailed students will now know the grades that they have to achieve in their A-levels to get into Cambridge. In general, the average grade offer for Cambridge is A*AA (380 UCAS Points), which is not much higher than a lot of other Universities in the UK. For example, the average grade offer for studying Biological Sciences at Oxford is AAA, Newcastle and Sheffield is AAB and University of East Anglia is ABB. Thus, in terms of grade offers, it is almost as easy to get into Cambridge as a lot of other Universities. BUT, the reality of the situation is more complex than this since the average grade that is actually achieved by Cambridge students is 559 UCAS Points (almost four A*) and as this is the average, some students must be achieving even higher grades than this. So Cambridge students may well be offered A*AA grades to get into the University but in reality they achieve much higher. Cambridge students out perform their offers.  Thus, the most difficult part is to get a conditional offer in the first place. 

 

So how do admission tutors decide these offers? Academics who interview prospective students have a hard time in identifying the best students as A-level grades have shown an inexorable rise over the last two decades (see Figure). In 2000, the proportion of A grades was 17.8% while in 2010 the proportion of A/A* grades was 27%. What this means in reality is that most students who apply to Cambridge will have very high predicted grades. Thus, the interview is particularly important in trying to identify the students to whom to make an entrance offer. Discriminating between students who are all predicted to get three or four A* is very difficult and every year there are well publicised cases of an A* student who does not get a place. Given the number of exceptional applicants, this is not particularly surprising. So admission tutors cannot really use predicted grades in any discriminating way to make offers. They have to resort to different criteria. I know that some Cambridge colleges obtain the AS exam results of the applicants and will only consider candidates that have achieved better than 90%. Moreover, high grades that are obtained after several re-sits will not carry as much weight as those achieved first time around. It is better to be ready and fully prepared for an exam and achieve your best grade at the first sitting rather than do multiple re-takes. In addition, the way in which the student performs during the interview will be very important in securing an offer.

Drug use at Cambridge

An article in the student newspaper “The Varsity” has just published the results of an online survey into the number of students who use illegal drugs while at Cambridge. The headline figure of 63% of students having taken illegal drugs seems very high. Headlines can be misleading however. Firstly, this does not mean that over 60% of all Cambridge students have taken drugs but only those that responded to the survey. The article does not give the number of students who completed the survey so it is impossible to gauge how prevalent drug taking might be in Cambridge. Percentage figures without an indication of the number of students who filled in the survey is misleading. If say 1000 students did the survey, of which 630 had taken drugs to give the 63% headline number, this would only be 3.5% of the total number of students at Cambridge. It cannot be assumed that the rate of drug taking will be the same between those students who completed the survey and those who did not. In surveys of this kind, there will be a bias for drug takers to want to compelete the survey. Why would students who do not take drugs be interested in completing a survey that they would see as irrelevant to them?

The second point is that the headline figure of 63% is a rather blunt instrument to convey accurately the full details of the survey. Reading the article more closely suggests that the breakdown of this headline figure is 61% marijuana, 2% cocaine and less than 1% heroin. Thus, the majority of the students who use illegal drugs are using the Class B drug, marijuana, rather than the more serious Class A drugs.

Snowy Cambridge

The hand of winter finally exerted its icy grip over Cambridge. Heavy snowfall over the week-end carpeted the city in 10 cm of snow and gave plenty of photographic opportunities. Cycling became treacherous but Cambridge is a small city that can be easily viewed on foot. 

Here are some photographs.

Difficult cycling conditions

Not the best weather for punting

Snowy River Cam with trails left by the ducks

Cambridge University Entrance Interviews

Just before Christmas, hundreds of nervous sixth formers arrive in Cambridge for college interviews hoping to be offered a place at the University. The interviews take place in whichever college the student has applied. The form and conduct of these interviews will vary widely depending upon the experience and quirks of the college fellows doing the interview, the subject that the student has applied to study and the academic background of the applicant. The questions that might be asked have often become the stuff of urban legend – for example, would you rather be an apple or a banana?

The questions are aimed at getting the students to think and to identify those who can use their brains. It is very difficult to discriminate between students based on their predicted A-level grades as most are expected to get three or four A-grades so the interview is one of the ways to identify whether the students can think for themselves or have simply been spoon-fed and tutored to achieve high A-level grades. It is unlikely therefore that the students will be asked to regurgitate factual knowledge from their A-level syllabus. Of course, some of the questions will be aimed at putting the student at ease such as why do they want to come to Cambridge, which book are they currently reading, why do they want to study subject X? Most of the students will have prepared responses to these banal questions. The more discriminating questions might require the student to use their A-level knowledge and apply it to situations with which they are not totally familiar. For example, why does a car get more miles per gallon of petrol if the tyres are properly inflated? Why do you often find sand on the bottom of a swimming pool? What might account for the leaves still left on this tree in the autumn?

Some questions will not necessarily have a correct answer such as the apple and banana question, but are aimed at seeing whether the student can give a clear, reasoned argument. For example, what do you consider the greatest scientific discovery of the 20^th century? Antibiotics, structure of DNA, contraception, vaccination? There are lots of possible answers but the interviewer will be looking to see if the student can present an argument justifying their choice.

Of course the process is stressful and certainly not perfect. It possibly favours the more confident students but by asking off the wall questions that are difficult to prepare for in advance, it is hoped that all the applicants are given a fair chance that is not dictated by the quality of the school they went to.

New Term

They’re back! The new term in Cambridge started yesterday and the students are all back in town. The traffick in Cambridge was chaotic at the week-end as parents dropped off their little darlings. It’s one of the only times that the city centre is open to general traffick –usually its restricted to pedestrians and bicycles. There are groups of new students wandering from bar to bar in the evenings on “orientation” events.

My Department has suddenly sprung into life. From a very quiet summer period we now have hoards of students traipsing up and down the stairs four-abreast and generally blocking the way. They are all collecting their lecture and coursework hand-outs ready for the start of lectures/practical classes on Thursday. The first year students are bright eyed and bushy tailed, the second year students cool and nonchalant and the third year students starting to realise that the end is nigh. The bicycle population in Cambridge had quadrupled over the weekend and it is now very difficult to find a spot to park my bike outside the Department.

Bike Congestion

Dead Heat

As an academic I am officially a “University Officer” which means that I am also a member of the Regent House which is the governing body of the University and responsible for setting the rules. We have just voted on a motion of no confidence in David Willetts, the Government Minister of State for Universities and Science. If the motion was passed, the University would have sent a letter of no confidence in Mr Willetts for his handling of the increase in University fees. Amazingly, the votes were tied at 681 each way so the motion failed and Mr Willetts will have one less letter to open. I was somewhat surprised and disappointed at the number of votes against the motion given that this was a symbolic gesture by which academics could voice their disapproval of the fee increase. In contrast, Oxford University voted 283 to 5 in favour of a no confidence motion. Must be a hot bed of radicals in Oxford or perhaps they just have a better moral conscience.

OCR Biology F215 A Level Exam

My daughter has just sat the final paper in her A level Biology (OCR paper F215). I have spent the last couple of months helping her revise so I had an interest in the overall content of the paper.  To get some idea about the questions that cropped up, I have followed the various discussions on chat forums and some students have been very unhappy about this paper. Their main criticism is that the paper was heavily biased toward ecological processes and concepts and did not have sufficient spread of questions covering all the syllabus topics. Facebook campaigns have been started and e-mails sent to OCR, the BBC and Ofqual. OCR has even issued a statement in response to the student’s concerns. Since OCR thinks that there was no problem with the paper, I have analyzed the mark distributions according to which core modules they come from. The results are:

Module 1 (Cellular control)                                                                     
20 marks

Module 2 (Biotechnology)                                                                      
20 marks

Module 3 (Ecosystems)                                                                          
28 marks

Module 4 (Responding to the Environment)                                         
19 marks

Assessment Objective 2 (Application of Knowledge/data handling)   
6 marks

Assessment Objective 3 (How Science Works)                                    
7 marks

At face value, it would appear that the questions were reasonably spread across all four Modules, with perhaps a slight bias towards Ecosystems. BUT, this does not take into account the content of each module. Based on the number of pages in the OCR Biology revision book by Heinemann, Module 1 = 33% of the syllabus, Module 2 = 28%, Module 3 =19% and Module 4 = 20%. On the exam paper, Module 3 questions account for 32% of the module specific marks but this module is only 18% of the syllabus. Perhaps the students have a point about the paper not being completely fair.

University Chancellor

The Chancellor is the titular Head of the University. The first Chancellor (Hugh de Hottun) was elected in 1246 and previous positions have been held by a plethora of Earls, Dukes, Lords and assorted aristocracy and not a single women. The Chancellorship is a life-long appointment and the individual performs several duties such as conferring Honorary Degrees and adjudicating in some University disputes. The Chancellor does not normally live in Cambridge but visits occasionally to perform these duties and have a slap up meal at one of the colleges. The current chancellor is HRH, The Duke of Edinburgh who has served since 1977, but at 90 years old he needs a rest and is stepping down. The Chancellor is elected by the University Senate and candidates require 50 nominations before they can stand. The plan by the University was to elect Lord Sainsbury as an unopposed candidate but a democratic system can jeopardise the best laid plans. Two other candidates have been proposed and gathered enough votes to force a proper election. The first candidate is Brian Blessed, a Cambridge graduate and actor well know for his thunderous voice and mountaineering exploits. The second candidate is Abdul Arain, a local shopkeeper who is campaigning against a Sainsbury’s supermarket opening in Mill Road. I suspect it will be a two horse race between the Bursary Sold In and the Beard Bless In. 

Brian Blessed whispering

Footloose and Fancy Free

A few months ago, a sculpture consisting of a pair of metal footprints inlaid into one of the paving slabs was added at one of the University sites. This interesting addition seemed to be appreciated by members of the public visiting the site. A few weeks later however, yellow lines were drawn around the sculpture. My first thought was that this was another example of Health and Safety gone mad to prevent the University being sued by some inattentive visitor who tripped on the few millimeters of metal protruding from the ground. Fortunately, I have heard that the yellow lines were put there by a construction firm working nearby to prevent them from driving over the sculpture and possibly damaging it. Common sense 1: observant workmen 0.

Outcome of Vote on University Fees

The votes have been counted and, as expected, University academics have taken the pragmatic approach of someone with a gun to their heads and voted in favour of allowing fees up to £9000 per year. A condition of being allowed to do this is that the University has to submit a proposal to the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) outlining plans for bursaries and financial help particularly for under-represented groups. The access agreement has not yet been finalised but has to be submitted to OFFA by 19^th April. The previous access agreement with OFFA had an aim of increasing the number of state school students admitted to the University to between 60-63% for 2011. Cambridge's state intake was 59.3% of full-time undergraduates in 2009-10. The real challenge will be to increase this proportion in the future, particularly as the number of state school applicants to Cambridge is likely to fall because of the fee increase.

Vote on University Fees

In addition to teaching duties, Cambridge academics are involved in running the University. Academics are members of The Regent House which is the governing body of the University and responsible for deciding on the rules and regulations of the University.  Changes to University regulations are subject to a democratic vote by all members of The Regent House. We are currently being asked to vote on increasing the fees that undergraduates will have to pay to study here from 2012 onwards. The two options in the vote are to charge fees at £6000 per annum or £9,000 per annum. The current University fees for UK and EU students are £3,375 per year and this will have to increase from 2012 as the Government is cutting the teaching grant money it gives to all Universities in the UK. The current teaching grant to Cambridge is around £51 million and to recoup the loss of this teaching grant, Cambridge will have to charge at least £8,400 per year based on the current number of undergraduates. Cambridge is not alone in this as several other Universities in the UK have already decided to raise the fees to £9,000 per annum which is the maximum allowed by the Government. My moral dilemma is that I completely disagree with any increase in University fees and if they have to go up, I would like them to be kept as small as possible. Morally, I should vote for the £6,000 per annum option but that would not leave the University in a financially viable position and jobs would have to be lost. This would be like a turkey voting for Christmas. The only financially viable option which has been forced upon us by the unholy alliance of the Tories and Liberal Democrats is to vote for the £9,000 per annum increase. I simply cannot do that because, unlike the Lib Dems, I will stick with my principles. I guess the only option I have is to abstain.

Cambridge Science Festival

National Science Week in the UK and Cambridge University is doing its bit to entertain and educate the public. For more information see http://comms.group.cam.ac.uk/sciencefestival/. Science departments have thrown open their doors and are giving lectures and presentations to anyone brave enough to enter the buildings. My department is giving a series of hands-on experiments and demonstrations in one of our large teaching classrooms at the week-end. Academics, post-docs, graduate students and classroom support staff all give their time freely to prepare and host this event. Our contribution is based on the stuff that we teach the undergraduates and also on the research activities in the department. It can be quite challenging trying to explain complex scientific concepts to the general public, many of whom have only basic scientific knowledge. It requires a certain skill in communication to explain difficult concepts in terms that can be understood by the person you are talking to. You have to try to quickly judge what their level of scientific knowledge might be and adapt your explanations accordingly. No point explaining the structure of an atom to a nuclear physicist or a 5 year old. Sometimes it's clear from the glazed eyes that you have pitched your explanation at the wrong level and lost them completely. In general, however, I have always been impressed by the enthusiasm of the visitors and how quickly most people can understand the concept of what you are telling them. The most important thing is to be passionate about what you are explaining; enthusiasm can hold an audience and a monotone drone will lose them.

Aims of this blog

There are a lot of misconceptions about what members of staff actually do at Cambridge University. I hope that through this blog I will inform the general public about the way in which Cambridge University functions and what it is like to work here. I hope to dispel the impression amongst some people that all we do is sit around drinking port and growing senile.