Otago HSFY chat - archive

[jim]

yeah thanks for the tip man

 

[Sam]

yeah thanks for the tip man

The average wouldn't tell you much anyways, as you want to be in the top 10-13%. 88 is fine with a good UMAT + MAOR102 however (especially if you're majorly brought down by a single paper)

 

[Havox]

Just a reminder to all our new members that we do expect use of full grammar and punctuation while posting on these forums. Thanks

 

[hardwork]

I did very badly in my Finals. I got 85,86,88,91. Do you suggest I take an 8th paper (Maori in mind)?

 

[frootloop]

I did very badly in my Finals. I got 85,86,88,91. Do you suggest I take an 8th paper (Maori in mind)?

1) No swearing on the forum, please
2) Those marks really aren't bad at all! Although yes, I'd still advise you to take MAOR102 (Although in fairness, I advise everyone to take MAOR102 )

 

[Cathay]

I did very s%#* in my Finals. I got 85,86,88,91.

I've censored one of your words there

Not sure I'd describe those marks using that sentence there. a) You can totally get into med with those marks (UMAT dependent like everyone else). b) You do run the risk of offending those who got equal to or lesser than your marks

[offtopic]I would've thought "very shit" was <70, but I guess people have different standards...[/offtopic]

Do you suggest I take an 8th paper (Maori in mind)?

I don't see the harm in taking an 8th paper. Sure, if you didn't take one you get an extra 3 hours or so a week to study, but it doesn't mean you'll spend an extra 3 hours a week studying. It certainly didn't in my case.

I think an 8th paper is a pretty good thing to do for just about everyone - but you've got to have the right attitude. You've really got to go into the 8th paper wanting to learn stuff, rather than simply 'get high marks'. If you have an open mind you might find it very interesting, whereas if you're only there to get marks you might find yourself dissatisfied (and potentially bored) with the content.

 

[AppleMac22]

I probably can't give that great advice for HSFY (since I didn't get in lol) but for anyone interested I've done both MAOR102 (in HSFY) and BSNS104 (2nd year) - personal opinion;

- MAOR102 = A+ if you get the answers to the worksheets (these are the final exam questions + long essay she tells you what the long essay questions are in the last lecture) and do good in the essays. Essays are very subjective.. I've seen people get really bad for them for no real obvious reason (i.e. discussed similar themes etc) but you can make up for it in the finals pretty nicely. MAOR102 is easy in that you can (or could then atleast) literally memorise word for word the worksheet answers and get A+, I didn't even know what I was writing .

-BSNS104 - the workload is very light, the book is really really good and it literally takes 10 minutes to read each chapter (this is the only book i've read at uni, don't regret it at all). We didn't have the lecturer gg had, but theres Steffan who is VERY helpful. He doesn't mind emails so spam away. Mid semester had really bad marks I think this was due to a lack of time though. However like its been said a hundred times on here its plussage so not too much of a worry. The final exam was made intentionally easier last year (or so it seemed) like the first MCQ last year was what are the names of the lecturers, and other questions based on the lecturer lol. A good portion were also repeated from previous years. Don't miss the tutorials no matter how pointless they seem (they are also not compulsory so its easy to skip them) they sometimes test things that weren't covered in the lecture but were in the tutorial. The tutorials are so relaxed too, don't make the mistake of simply waving them off.
A real advantage of BSNS104 over maori is that a) work is conceptual, so once you get the concept you can answer any question (like maths)
b) theres 1 mid semester test... I did MUCH less work for BSNS104 than for the MAOR102 essays + tests etc.
c) concept paper so you don't even need to listen to audio's this is the one paper where I learnt everything during the lecture
And it doesn't matter if you haven't taken economics at school, this is really an introductory paper with basic concepts. I also agree with gg - you learn applicable concepts that stick with you for everyday life.

Thinking back now, even though I did well in MAOR102, I think BSNS104 would have been much less work..

 

[frootloop]

- MAOR102 = A+ if you get the answers to the worksheets (these are the final exam questions + long essay she tells you what the long essay questions are in the last lecture) and do good in the essays. Essays are very subjective.. I've seen people get really bad for them for no real obvious reason (i.e. discussed similar themes etc) but you can make up for it in the finals pretty nicely. MAOR102 is easy in that you can (or could then atleast) literally memorise word for word the worksheet answers and get A+, I didn't even know what I was writing .

They've changed the exam format. Now it's just the MCQs, and 4 SAQs from the worksheets. Final exam took me like half an hour And to be honest, my essays were both at no higher than a level 2 English standard in terms of quality of argument, and I got A+ in both of them. I'm fairly sure most of your essay grades just come down to doing all the procedural stuff (eg: referencing) EXACTLY as they want it done (time consuming, but very straightforward), then the essay itself doesn't exactly need to be a world-beater. For example, since the essay is 50% procedural stuff, 50% essay quality, if you get full marks for referencing and stuff (which isn't difficult) then you only need 80% in terms of essay quality to get an A+ for the essay.

A real advantage of BSNS104 over maori is that a) work is conceptual, so once you get the concept you can answer any question (like maths)
b) theres 1 mid semester test... I did MUCH less work for BSNS104 than for the MAOR102 essays + tests etc.
c) concept paper so you don't even need to listen to audio's this is the one paper where I learnt everything during the lecture
And it doesn't matter if you haven't taken economics at school, this is really an introductory paper with basic concepts. I also agree with gg - you learn applicable concepts that stick with you for everyday life.

Thinking back now, even though I did well in MAOR102, I think BSNS104 would have been much less work..

Surprising. Obviously I haven't done both papers, so can't comment on BSNS104 personally, but I was under the impression from the people I knew doing BSNS104 that they were doing a lot more work for it than I was for MAOR102. Personally, I (and I'm not exaggerating) spent one day on each essay, and did 3 hours of 'study' for the final (ie: Between the HUBS final in the morning, and MAOR in the afternoon, lol).
I'd say a lot of how 'easy' you find MAOR comes down to how well you can bull**** in essays and SAQs. Like you say, concept/maths-y people would probably be better suited to BSNS.

 

[AppleMac22]

They've changed the exam format. Now it's just the MCQs, and 4 SAQs from the worksheets. Final exam took me like half an hour And to be honest, my essays were both at no higher than a level 2 English standard in terms of quality of argument, and I got A+ in both of them. I'm fairly sure most of your essay grades just come down to doing all the procedural stuff (eg: referencing) EXACTLY as they want it done (time consuming, but very straightforward), then the essay itself doesn't exactly need to be a world-beater. For example, since the essay is 50% procedural stuff, 50% essay quality, if you get full marks for referencing and stuff (which isn't difficult) then you only need 80% in terms of essay quality to get an A+ for the essay

Wow, that actually sounds easier if its just 4 SAQs, are they still just from the worksheets (word for word)?
Yeah, I mean the statements I made are based on pretty small sample sizes, i.e. I was in a flat with other people also doing the paper, we all proof-read each others papers and wrote similarly (obviously not to the extent where it was prone to be tagged as plagerism) and while me and another person got above 90 for one of the essays another didn't (actually much lower).. and when they went to discuss their mark the marker point out things that we also did and didn't get marked down for (this didn't relate to the referencing or technical aspects of the essay). That was pretty odd to say the least. However like I said you can make up for it (as this person did) in the final.
I also spent more time than 1 day though for each essay lol I guess this is just a personal ability thing though.

I guess if your deciding between the two look into your strengths ;
- if your comfortable juggling essays (which in theory aren't difficult) and don't mind memorising a few statements and opinions of the lecturers on aspects such as maori-based schooling (forgot the name lol) then maori is a good bet.
- if your more of a concept person and don't enjoy memorising or don't feel confident with rote learning in a non-science based course BSNS104 might be a bit better (and I guess you will however need to spend a bit more time learning the concepts but once again this will differ from individual to individual). And just incase I gave the impression you need to be math minded, not really lol the maths itself is basic I think the hardest thing you will need to do is rearrange a equation.

MAOR102 definetly wins as the "didn't study but can still get A+ in 2 days before the exam" paper though (if your comfortable with cramming/memorising things which may not be very exciting or that you "get").

 

[frootloop]

I suppose where there's essays, there's subjective marking. And yep, you answer 4 SAQs out of 6(?) given, and they're straight off the worksheet (yy)

 

[jim]

Hello Does anyone know what the structure of the BSNS104 test and exam is? Because I have heard that they have changed the this paper a lot. Thanks

Are there any essays involved? Or is it just MCQ and short-written questions? Thanks again

 

[sunny123]

Jim, I did bsns104 4 years ago too(must've been same time as greenglacier), and found it incredibly easy. I did do economics at school but the content is pretty much all introductory anyway, as far as i can remember there were only 2 tests the entire semester, a midterm and the finals. Plussage applied so if you didn't do so well in the mid term your final exam counted for your grade entirely, and EVERYTHING was MCQ apart from one really small short answer question in the finals. I can't really comment on maori as i've never done it but 104 is a wise choice IMO, for the finals you can just look over previous years exam and collectively through all past year exams you can pretty much conceptually cover every type of question they will throw at you in the finals

 

[jim]

Thanks for that Sunny
Yeah the BSNS paper have changed so much so I am wondering what the structure of the test and exam is.
Did that paper involved maths? Lots or little?
And the past papers for BSNS are embargoed- do you have some? Can I have some to have a look at please?
Thanks again

 

[bobby190]

Just to reinterate I id highly recommend BSNS too. 1.5 days study before the exam and straight A. I studied ridiculuously hard in that 1.5 days mind you. Did only Year 11 econs before and went to 2-3 lectures. I had the textbook aswell which helped. Not much maths at all from what I recall.

 

[AppleMac22]

Thanks for that Sunny
Yeah the BSNS paper have changed so much so I am wondering what the structure of the test and exam is.
Did that paper involved maths? Lots or little?
And the past papers for BSNS are embargoed- do you have some? Can I have some to have a look at please?
Thanks again

Don't worry it hasn't really changed that much. The final is still MCQ and SAQs, last year the SAQs involved drawing graphs and questions that were discussed clearly in lectures nothing too out of the ordinary. I have a past practice exam I don't really see the harm in sharing I guess?
Like I said above all they expect is that you can rearrange equations, so don't worry about that too much!

 

[greenglacier]

When I did BSNS, the final exam was 50 MCQs and 25 marks of SAQ (including 3 x 5 mark questions where you had to write about a page). The lecturer told us in advance what topic each SAQ would be about (and actually got fairly specific about this). I ended up getting 25/25 on the SAQs fairly easily.

 

[Hari]

I hope this is just me mis reading the article, but apparently theres going to be interviews plus permanent residency stand downs for med admission Health Sciences, University of Otago, New Zealand

Yeay to the interview, boo to the last @-@ It is so unfair! Yet I can see where they are coming from

 

[greenglacier]

I hope this is just me mis reading the article, but apparently theres going to be interviews plus permanent residency stand downs for med admission Health Sciences, University of Otago, New Zealand

Yeay to the interview, boo to the last @-@ It is so unfair! Yet I can see where they are coming from

I suggest you read the page in its entirety. The page you linked to refers to the OTHER CATEGORY of medical admissions (which has always used an interview), NOT the HSFY entry category.

 

[Hari]

Still has the 2 year residency stand down though @-@

 

[greenglacier]

Still has the 2 year residency stand down though @-@

Why don't you have a look at the guidelines for HSFY admission: Application for Admission to Health Sciences Professional Programmes, Division of Health Sciences, University of Otago

Then tell me what you think.