Auckland OLY1 chat - archive

[g.walker]

hey im studying biomed this year and i am struggling to find ways for pophlth revision and/or motivation.
what worked for you guys regarding pophlth? :wacko:

memorising and rehersing better than a parrot

 

[frootloop]

Sounds exactly like HSFY rote learning...

 

[greenglacier]

Sounds exactly like HSFY rote learning...

[offtopic]You've yet to be exposed to HEAL192 (the equivalent paper to what they're talking about).... then you'll understand what true rote learning hell is [/offtopic]

 

[frootloop]

[OFFTOPIC]I've heard all about HEAL, it is pretty much my motivation for acing this semester, so that if I only end up with an A- or B in it, it wont matter [/OFFTOPIC]

 

[bambasbat]

realistically what is the required GPA for Auckland Uni OLY1? I mean for for core AND overall?

So far we have had 4 tests, In biosci 107 and Chem I got over 90, in 101 around low 80 and in POPHLTH 23/30. Am I on the right track? It's kinda tough to know this year especially since the thresholds have been raised.

Also, does anyone have any idea whether there is scaling in any of the papers? Or do most of the examiners want much fewer people to get an A+ this year?

Shamelessly bumping this because I need an answer

 

[4everAlone]

No-one can give you a definitive answer for that...it all depends on your year group. Your overall GPA only needs to be > 6. I think that a core GPA of 7.5 was needed for an interview for the last few years, but with that sort of gpa you'd need to ace the interview to get in.
Obviously aim as close to a 9 core GPA as you can. Anything over 8.25 (maybe 8.5?) I would think would be pretty competitive with a decent interview. You're definitely on the right track at the moment.
Not sure about the scaling, I assume they do (we got given a few 'bonus' marks in the medsci exam last year)
Hope that answers your questions

 

[kakarot]

I should know this, considering I'm doing biomed this year but I hear the threshold for A+ has been raised compared to previous years? I think it's 90 this year, so I'm guessing it was 85 for A+ last year? If so, that's quite a big leap, but will this year's newly adjusted A+ threshold drop back to 85 if there aren't as many expected A+ candidates?(I say this as 107 was supposedly a disaster for many)

Core GPA thing is what I think of 80% of the time nowadays - Do you think 8.5 core gpa is alright for entry to med via biomed OLY1? I know the interview plays a major role but doesn't 8.5 mean you have to have done quite a good interview?(I hear a lot get 8.75~9.0 ><) Regardless of this, I'll aim for 9.0 but just wondered...

 

[4everAlone]

I should know this, considering I'm doing biomed this year but I hear the threshold for A+ has been raised compared to previous years? I think it's 90 this year, so I'm guessing it was 85 for A+ last year? If so, that's quite a big leap, but will this year's newly adjusted A+ threshold drop back to 85 if there aren't as many expected A+ candidates?(I say this as 107 was supposedly a disaster for many)

Core GPA thing is what I think of 80% of the time nowadays - Do you think 8.5 core gpa is alright for entry to med via biomed OLY1? I know the interview plays a major role but doesn't 8.5 mean you have to have done quite a good interview?(I hear a lot get 8.75~9.0 ><) Regardless of this, I'll aim for 9.0 but just wondered...

I know that bio and medsci raised their A+ thresholds to 90%, poplhlth was already at 90%, and I'm assuming chem has been raised to 90%? (although feel free to correct me on that as it's just a guess!). All except poplhlth were 85% last year.
I cannot see the 90% threshold changing now as these cutoffs were increased to bring the sciences into line with the rest of the faculties so it is now 90% across the board for an A+ (including med grrrr)
I'd say 8.5 would give you a pretty decent shot esp with the threshold raising, but who really knows. It all depends on how your cohort goes.

 

[govpop]

I cannot see the 90% threshold changing now as these cutoffs were increased to bring the sciences into line with the rest of the faculties so it is now 90% across the board for an A+ (including med grrrr)
.

haha they'll probably just scale it up even more for us. did you see the curve for the msk test, it was more like an upward sloping straight line

 

[4everAlone]

haha they'll probably just scale it up even more for us. did you see the curve for the msk test, it was more like an upward sloping straight line

True ahaha I've never seen marks distributed like that before! Plus everyone I talked to was like that test was hard I couldn't do Merv's questions wahhh. Now I don't wana imagine what an 'easy' test would look like!!

 

[kakarot]

I'm assuming chem has been raised to 90%? (although feel free to correct me on that as it's just a guess!)

Found out today that CHEM 110 A+ remains at 85, which put a lot of smiles on peoples' faces in the lecture theatre - Doesn't affect me too much though, I want 100 since my labs are all 2. Only like two people in our class actually get the highest "1" in labs each week usually... I try my hardest each lab, and last week I got my lab for wine distillation, and despite not having a single cross on my paper, still got 2 WILL I EVER GET A ONE

Should stop watching It's always sunny in philadelphia, I have chem and pophlth test 2 both within the next week ><

 

[frootloop]

[OFFTOPIC]Just out of interest, are you Aucklander's ranked by GPA as opposed to %ages? That would make for slightly different strategies to down here...[/OFFTOPIC]

 

[4everAlone]

[OFFTOPIC]Just out of interest, are you Aucklander's ranked by GPA as opposed to %ages? That would make for slightly different strategies to down here...[/OFFTOPIC]

[OFFTOPIC] Yeah GPA so yup it would =) [/OFFTOPIC]

And I wouldn't worry about not getting ones I only got twos and threes and its all scaled at the end anyway to account for differences between tutors

 

[frootloop]

Yeah, seeing as straight 90%'s would be exactly the same as straight 100%'s

 

[kakarot]

So frootloop, it sounds like otago doesn't use GPA but use percentages? I think I heard it's also over all the papers, which is quite different to Auckland (guess it works/doesnt work for certain people)..What kind of average % over all the papers get people into med over there for HSFY? ALL of my friends/acquaintances went to Otago lol

 

[qbob]

Found out today that CHEM 110 A+ remains at 85, which put a lot of smiles on peoples' faces in the lecture theatre - Doesn't affect me too much though, I want 100 since my labs are all 2.

I got 2's for the first 2 labs, then a 1 for the wine distillation, but then I got a 4 in the last lab. argh!

 

[frootloop]

So frootloop, it sounds like otago doesn't use GPA but use percentages? I think I heard it's also over all the papers, which is quite different to Auckland (guess it works/doesnt work for certain people)..What kind of average % over all the papers get people into med over there for HSFY? ALL of my friends/acquaintances went to Otago lol

The number depends on what your UMAT score is, but if you have an ok UMAT (70th-ish %ile) then a 90-91% average should get you in. If your UMAT is crap, it needs to be a bit higher than that, and vice versa. And yep, over all papers (although you get to take an optional 8th paper, and Otago only look at your best 7, so if you screw one up, it doesn't kill you)

 

[Srao92]

from what I've heard Auckland will have an extra 50 places for the 2012 intake, and a further 50 places for the 2013 intake.

i.e. the 2013 cohort will have ~300 students (the 2011 cohort had 210 students)

I've been told thats mostly for graduate entry.
I'm doing health science and i'm not to worried about making it in this year. I'll most likely be off to paramedic school next year at AUT and apply to medicine via graduate entry in 4 years

 

[Srao92]

It gets much easier from here on in...our test 2 average was 84% iirc. But it really comes down to the exam more than anything!

Just finished up test two yesterday...it was quite tough I must say.
I've been relentlessly studying for two weeks now and I still found myself tossing between options often.
The practice test we were given was fairly remedial.

Makes me quite nervous for Chem 110 :S

 

[kakarot]

I just saw the CHEM 110 Test 2 marks, seems the average is pretty low with 56/100 and a UQ of 69/100 zzz Lack of time to complete spec question properly screwed me over hard - good thing i left it until last or else i woulda stopped on q3 :/

"If you've done NMR spectroscopy for god-knows-how-long I have, you dream of spectra." - Dr Copp