So you want to go to Oxford/Cambridge University?

These are some of the questions asked during the December 2007 Oxbridge interviews (for entry 2008-9):



Oxford:



1. Why is there salt in the sea? (Biochemistry, Oxford)
2. Does a snail have a consciousness? (Experimental Psychology, Oxford)
3. What does it mean to be happy? (Philosophy and Modern Languages,Oxford)
4. When I get home this evening, how can I be sure that my wife’s diamond ring won’t have turned into graphite? (Chemistry, Oxford)
5. How would you market a rock band? (Economics and Management, Oxford)
6. Talk about a light bulb (Engineering, Oxford)
7. Would you rather be a novel or a poem? (English, Oxford)
8. If it could take a form, what shape would the novel “To the Lighthouse” become? (English, Oxford)
9. How many monkeys would you use in an experiment? (Experimental Psychology, Oxford)
10. Does this poem remind you of anything? What about spider-man? (English, Oxford)
11. How many grains of sand are there in the world? (Physics, Oxford)
12. Can a thermostat think? (Experimental Psychology, Oxford)
13. What colour is that notice board? (Mathematics and Philosophy, Oxford)
14. Explain the difference between shame, guilt and regret (Experimental Psychology, Oxford)
15. How does Geography relate to a Midsummer Night’s Dream? (Geography, Oxford)
16. How would you define infinity? (PPE, Oxford)
17. How do you organise a successful revolution? (History, Oxford)
18. Can you express every natural number in fewer than 50 characters? (Mathematics and Philosophy, Oxford)
19. Do you believe that statues can move, and how might this belief be justified? (French and Spanish, Oxford)
20. Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Discuss. (Music, Oxford)
21. Is Wittgenstein always right? (French and Philosophy, Oxford)
22. What happens if I drop an ant? (Physics, Oxford)
23. If you’re not in California, how do you know it exists? (PPE, Oxford)
24. Is it morally wrong to attempt to climb a mountain? (Theology, Oxford)

Cambridge:
(For Mary)

1. If I were a grapefruit, would I rather be seedless or non-seedless? (Medicine, Cambridge)
2. Describe your school from an anthropological perspective (Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge)
3. How do you feel about anger and violence? (Architecture, Cambridge)
4. How many of these pebbles would fit in a car? (Natural Sciences, Cambridge)
5. Would I be justified in saying that only morons play sport? (Economics, Cambridge)
6. Are you cool? (Economics, Cambridge)
7. Why do we sneeze? (Natural Sciences, Cambridge)
8. Describe this saucer to me as if I wasn’t in the room (Economics, Cambridge)
9. What would happen if you drilled through the Earth all the way to the other side and then jumped into the hole? (Engineering, Cambridge)
10. How small can you make a computer? (Engineering, Cambridge)
11. Why do you think Charlotte Bronte detested Jane Austen? (English, Cambridge)
12. Why is rhythm important in a play? (French and German, Cambridge)
13. If money was no object, where in the world would you go and why? (Geography, Cambridge)
14. Do you think you’re clever? (Law, Cambridge)
15. Can History stop the next war? (History, Cambridge)
16. What photograph would I use to represent global warming to a business person? (Geography, Cambridge)
17. How would you poison someone without the police finding out? (Medicine, Cambridge)
18. How much can the success of the tank be attributed to the psychological impact it had on enemy forces? (History, Cambridge)
19. What would you do if you were a magpie? (Natural Sciences, Cambridge)
20. Would you say that greed is good or bad? (Land Economy, Cambridge)
21. If you could walk out into the College into a time machine, who would you go back and interview to clear up any historical problem that interests you? (History, Cambridge)
22. Should we have laws for the use of light bulbs? (Law, Cambridge)
23. Is there such a thing as an immoral book? (French and Spanish, Cambridge)
24. What did we learn about mankind by walking on the moon? (History, Cambridge)
25. Tell me about your life, from the beginning to what made you sit in that chair (Natural Sciences, Cambridge)
26. If a wife had expressed distaste for it previously, would her husband’s habit of putting marmalade in his egg at breakfast be grounds for divorce? (Law, Cambridge)
27. If my friend locks me in a room, and says I am free to come out whenever I like as long as I pay £5, is this a deprivation of liberty? (Law, Cambridge)
28. Why is it a disadvantage for humans to have two legs? (Medicine, Cambridge)
29. Are all our characteristics inherited? (French, Cambridge)
30. Why don’t fish freeze? (Natural Sciences, Cambridge)
31. Instead of politicians, why don’t we let the managers of IKEA run the country? (SPS, Cambridge)

Students thinking of applying to Oxbridge might like to consider this service - but it's not cheap!

Read this and listen to this.

Quote:

"The last few years Oxford and Cambridge have been at pains to change their elitist image and encourage more students from state schools to apply. Gains have certainly been made but it's an uphill struggle. According to new research from Oxbridge Applications, a company set up specifically to help students get into Oxford and Cambridge, many students from state schools still believe that Oxbridge is not for them and the numbers of students from the state sector applying is still relatively low. The figures bear this out. Less than 10% of British children are privately educated and yet they make up almost 50% of the Oxbridge student body. "

Printing money

Those of you who are serious about your Economics will already have read articles about 'quantitative easing'. In fact if your main source of knowledge is the Daily Mail you'll have read:

"The prospect of what is known as ' quantitative easing' - printing money - emerged after Mr Darling gave a clear sign that the recession will be worse than expected. Such a step would mark a dramatic moment in British economic history, ending decades of trying to limit the growth of the money supply. It would also mean an end to the decade-old independence of the Bank of England as ministers took charge of what would be a politically-sensitive policy.

And it would risk driving down the value of the pound, which is already under intense pressure in the money markets in the face of low interest rates and fears of soaring Government borrowing.....Zimbabwe is an example of an economy where reckless printing of money has led to stratospheric levels of inflation, with a loaf of bread costing millions of dollars. Weimar Germany in the 1930s was a similar story.

If base rates fall to near zero the Treasury and the Bank of England will have lost one of their only weapons for stimulating growth. Printing more money would generate cash which would be used to buy so-called toxic assets - bad loans - from ailing banks, allowing them in turn to start lending to businesses and homebuyers again..."

Source: The Daily Mail

The more enthusiastic among you will therefore be pleased that on David Smith's blog he writes authoritatively about quantitative easing and how it is NOT 'printing money':

"Quantitative easing is often described as "printing money", though it is not....he Bank limited itself to a half-point cut to 1.5% last week, though taking us, as every schoolboy knows, to the lowest rate since 1694. That seemed sensible, despite figures on Friday showing an alarming plunge in manufacturing output. It leaves shots in the locker and time to think about other measures.

"Printing money", to be clear, is not the same as printing money. This is not a cash economy. The value of notes and coins in circulation is £51.6 billion, less than 3% of £1.9 trillion of "broad" money in Britain, M4, consisting of bank deposits and the corresponding lending. Printing money means getting broad money growing faster through so-called quantitative easing.

How? One way is for the Bank to buy government bonds or commercial securities from banks or their customers. This creates a credit in the central bank's reserve account, which can then be the basis for increased bank lending. It also drives down interest rates throughout the economy.

Or, in a situation where the government is borrowing large amounts, as now, it can "underfund" its budget deficit by issuing fewer gilts than needed, or by selling them direct to the Bank. The effect is to boost broad money, M4. Or, if none of this works, the central bank can lend directly into the economy, using the banks as its agents."

Having read the above, now read through this...

Of course if you read the Financial Times over Christmas (as you were advised to do) then you'd already know all this:

What is quantitative easing? Central banks normally regulate the quantity of money in the economy by altering its price in the form of the interest rate, which makes demand expand or contract. Once interest rates get down towards zero, they cannot be cut any further. (Unless, that is, the central bank starts charging people for holding money, for example by putting expiry dates on currency, but that would be difficult to pull off.)

So the only way to get more money into the economy is to pump it in by other means. In an economy that ran entirely on banknotes, this would just mean setting the printing presses going. In a credit-based financial system it means taking actions such as buying long-term government bonds. This means taking less liquid financial assets out of the system and holding them on the central bank’s balance sheet, and replacing them with cash.

What is the aim of this? The scenario that causes central bankers to wake sweating in the night is an uncontrolled deflation – that is, a fall in the general level of prices at a time when the economy is weak. If interest rates are already at zero, falling prices mean that the real rate of interest starts rising. This hurts companies and consumers who have borrowed money. Since consumers’ wages, and the prices of goods and services that companies sell, are actually falling, they will struggle to pay back loans. Pushing cash into the economy is intended to keep up demand and prevent deflation taking hold.

If the central bank wants to do it this way, it can essentially create money and give it to the government to spend, forcing up the demand for goods and services and preventing prices falling.

What is the US Federal Reserve up to? Rather than say in advance precisely what it will do, or announce specific targets for the money supply, the Fed is basically telling everyone that it will do whatever it takes to push cash into the economy. It has already bought a lot of short-term assets issued by banks and companies. It is now suggesting it might buy a lot more longer-term assets such as bonds issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage agencies that are now controlled by the government, or government bonds (US Treasuries) directly.

Is there a limit to this? What are the risks? Since the central bank is a monopolist which can create money without limit, it can carry on pumping out as much as it wants. The risk is not that it will run out of money but that the situation will suddenly flip and prices will start rising uncontrollably. This would almost certainly be accompanied by a collapse in the currency on the foreign exchanges.

Such currency crises and “hyperinflations” are what bedevilled Latin American countries for decades. Quantitative easing is a high-risk option, to be taken when other solutions have failed.

Source: The Financial Times

It is argued though, that quantitative easing did not work in Japan (see graphic from the Financial Times) but is that really comparing like with like?

Look at the differences:

• Consumer preferences for savings versus consumption
• The nature and volumes of foreign direct investment
• The preferences of domestic investors for domestic versus foreign assets
• The ease and speed of corporate restructurings; the ease and speed of business formation/job creation
• The nature and rate of government consumption and investment activities
• The breadth and depth of credit and insurance markets

The reason I mention this is that with Business Studies and Economics examinations approaching make sure you stress that whatever policy/remedy/decision you discuss - whetehr it be for a business or an economy - would not necessarily work for another business or economy. You will thus demonstrate evaluation if you illustrate that you haven't simply learned a list of key points to be applied without any thought.

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