Deadlife,
I am studying in Oxford for final year. Oxford does not look for straight As students but all round students. 5 of my friends got straight As got rejected while I did not straight As in O-level. But you need straight As in A-level to fulfill the conditional offer. By the way, Bill Clinton could not get the cert which means he could not graduate in Oxford. But his daughter did.
Alex, KW,
As Alex has mentioned, it is better to develop the body mind connection before to apply PR to textbooks. I just PRed the books and activated my notes by traditional skills but I set purpose and ask questions as well. For maths, the notes are just about 30 pages so I don't really bother to super read and dip. The most horrible part is to solve questions esp the last part of the past exam papers. I just try my best to solve them anyway. This is the short summary of my study.
For my personal matter, I am indeed quite nervous about not being able to get a First this year. Last year I did too badly so that I need 73, which is a High First in Maths, to get an upper second overall. I think KW would understand my situation. Most of the companies require an Upper Second as a minimum requirement for them to scan my CV further.
Alex, I need to get an upper second just to get Goldman Sachs or McKinsey to scan my CV. My purpose of going to these companies is to learn to invest intelligently. Though there are some people like Warren Buffet who did investment successfully on their self-study, I guess most people need some proper training and a good enviroment to develop the valuation skills and great intuition for investment. An CEO came to Oxford and he told me that his great investment sense comes from his character and the training from McKinsey and Goldman Sachs. He worked in McKinsey for 3 years and Goldman Sachs Private Equity for 7 years. He did a lot of good deals. In short, I need a high First this year in order to get an Upper Second overall as an admission ticket to apply to these companies.
There are only less than 3 weeks to exam. I have prepared much more well than last 2 years. I have gone through everything already and doing the past papers. But I always get stuck in the last part(hardest part) of the question and I feel quite frustrated. Though the professor explains the answers, the same type of qu would never come up again in the exam. This is the way Oxford differentiate the Best and the Very Good.
I tried to work for 13 hrs a day and the next day I was exhausted. Alex, KW, can you 2 suggest me some ways to improve my efficiency and thinking skill to solve these problems? It is now not the problem of not knowing the lecture notes, but the ability to demonstrate high level thinking and application of the theory I have learnt.
[This message has been edited by Michael S (edited May 17, 2005).]
