PLEASE HELP!I need advice....

[Abhishek Neogi]

I'm currently doing my AS Levels and am studying Physics,Math,English and ICT for my choice of subjects and am also planning to continue with these for my A levels as well.
The thing is I've been hearing a lot about SAT exams and how important they are in your academic profile for getting admission into the top tier universities like Cambridge and Oxford.
I DON'T HAVE A CLUE AS TO HOW TO PROCEED AND PREPARE FOR MY SAT EXAMS.

Here are my questions:
Q.1) Are we supposed to take the SAT exam for subjects in a group [Like Science,English,Commerce etc] or are we allowed to take them individually [Like Physics,English,ICT etc]? I'm neither a full fledged science student[The guys who take Phy,Chem,Math all 3 as a combo] nor an economics one as you can see. So...yeah?

Q.2) When is the best time for taking these SAT Exams?
Q.3) HOW do we prepare for it?
Q.4) HOW do I know whether I'm up to the mark or not by my AS/A Level Exam results?
Q.5)What are the advantages of SAT and WHY is it like a MUST-Attempt exam for building up our academic profile?
Q.6)How many papers are there for each subject in SAT?
Q.7) Do we have Practical exams in SAT?
Q.8)Are the exams held online or are they written exams?
Q.9)I know that the question papers consist of Multiple choice questions but just for info-sake,do we get structured type question papers as well?
Q.10) How many times are we allowed to attempt the exam?Is there a limitation such as it being available only for AS Level students and not for the A Levels?
Q.11)My school doesn't offer subjects like computing,art and design etc.Say I want to write the exams for these subjects.Then can I sit for these exams as a private candidate at the same time without withdrawing my school's admission?Or is there a procedure for doing it.
I wanna opt for computing.......but my school doesn't offer it.
However computing is INDEED an AS/A Level Subject so yeah....?

I'll add up more questions to this list if I can think of any more.These are all the questions I've got for now.



AND there's one more thing I'd like to mention!
I'm planning to become an Animator and that's why I took those 4 subjects for my studies.
I heard that there's an M.Phil degree course for Computer Science in Cambridge and I want to do that as well.
So can anybody guide me a bit and lend me some good quality advice so that I can proceed accordingly?

 

[Hephistocles]

Hey, I got your PM so I'm posting my two cents here, but I know nothing about SATS at all. Where are you from? I thought SATs were an American thing. In England anyway, most people just take A-levels (I don't know anyone who hasn't done A-levels to go to uni). Would they be as well as A-levels, or instead of them? Certainly I don't think you need to do more exams than A-levels. Anything extra you do will help your application, but it's not vital. Obviously if you're taking SATs instead of A-levels then that's fine.

The only one of your questions that I can directly answer is #11 - talk to your school about it. They have the power to put you in for any exam that exists, as a registered exam center (I did GCSE Ancient Greek at my school, for example, even though nobody else took it). If you can teach yourself, then great! Talk to your school about the workload though. It would be better to do fewer exams and get all A*, than to take lots and only get Bs. Have you done any computing/programming before? It's very different to ICT. I think you might have trouble teaching yourself if you've never done any before, but if you have done programming before, then it could be pretty easy for you. You *might* be able to convince your school to let you take Computing instead of A-level. You could go to the library during your normal ICT lessons and teach yourself computing within the standard timetable.

The MPhil in CompSci at Cambridge is the course that I'm starting next week! It looks like a really good course, but I think it's possibly overkill to become an animator. I think it would be more worthwhile to study the creative/art side of things, but I might be wrong. For your Cambridge application, A-levels will be more than enough to get an interview (it's all I had to go on) as long as they're good predicted grades. I also think that Computing will be waay more useful than ICT for any kind of computing course, but especially at Cambridge. With that said, your most important subjects will be Maths and Physics anyway.

Let me know if I can help with anything else!

 

[Abhishek Neogi]

Hey, I got your PM so I'm posting my two cents here, but I know nothing about SATS at all. Where are you from? I thought SATs were an American thing. In England anyway, most people just take A-levels (I don't know anyone who hasn't done A-levels to go to uni). Would they be as well as A-levels, or instead of them? Certainly I don't think you need to do more exams than A-levels. Anything extra you do will help your application, but it's not vital. Obviously if you're taking SATs instead of A-levels then that's fine.

The only one of your questions that I can directly answer is #11 - talk to your school about it. They have the power to put you in for any exam that exists, as a registered exam center (I did GCSE Ancient Greek at my school, for example, even though nobody else took it). If you can teach yourself, then great! Talk to your school about the workload though. It would be better to do fewer exams and get all A*, than to take lots and only get Bs. Have you done any computing/programming before? It's very different to ICT. I think you might have trouble teaching yourself if you've never done any before, but if you have done programming before, then it could be pretty easy for you. You *might* be able to convince your school to let you take Computing instead of A-level. You could go to the library during your normal ICT lessons and teach yourself computing within the standard timetable.

The MPhil in CompSci at Cambridge is the course that I'm starting next week! It looks like a really good course, but I think it's possibly overkill to become an animator. I think it would be more worthwhile to study the creative/art side of things, but I might be wrong. For your Cambridge application, A-levels will be more than enough to get an interview (it's all I had to go on) as long as they're good predicted grades. I also think that Computing will be waay more useful than ICT for any kind of computing course, but especially at Cambridge. With that said, your most important subjects will be Maths and Physics anyway.

Let me know if I can help with anything else!

You've given me some real valuable info for the day.I'm from India btw.xD
Well,the good news is...I did check up about SAT today at school.
This is exactly what they've said:
If I wanna study in any university in America then I HAVE TO sit for SAT and TOEFL
If I wanna study at Cambridge or any other university at UK,I have to sit for IELTS and not for SAT and TOEFL.

And since I've taken ICT,I can't do computing in my A Levels.
But I can sit for the AS Level computing exam as a private candidate. There's only 1 paper I can attempt since I've taken ICT and that's called Paper S2.[Idk what the hell's that though]
There won't be any practicals/projects for me in computing since I've taken up ICT.

Ah and as for my experience in programming..I do have some lol
I know quite a bit of high-school JAVA and C++.Besides that,I know XHTML[thoroughly] and a bit of CSS.

And one more thing!
Sorry for asking this favor but could you point me out to a few EXTREMELY AWESOME Physics sites from where I can learn Physics on my own.
The teacher in my school doesn't explain the concepts properly and so,everyday,I end up looking up for notes and explanations on the internet.
In short,she explains gibberish lol
As for practicals here in my country, she doesn't conduct them very well.
I want to LEARN the subject on my own and get a hands-on experience on my OWN.


So far she's taken a small test and in that I scored an B.[Missed an A Grade by 1 mark.Just 1 darn mark! D:<]
And what grades am I expected to score in Physics and Math in order to get into Cambridge?


So what should I do?I can't take up computing because then I'd have to withdraw my admission from my school and turn myself into a full-fledged private candidate and prepare for the CIE on my own.
On the other hand,if I do continue to study those subjects in school,I can't continue with Computing in my A Levels since A Level computing is said to be available only for private candidates.
However I can continue with ICT in my A Levels.
By the way,I've scored an A* in all my ICT tests so far. Got a B in English though. -.-

Alright then,to sum it up,here's my list of subjects:

1. Physics - AS & A Levels
2. Math - AS & A Levels
3.ICT - AS & A Levels
4. English - AS & A Levels
5.Computing - AS Levels only[/quote]



And as for animation and stuff,it's not an issue for me since I've already secured a spot in one of the best studios in India.I'm currently learning about it on my own.I'll be joining em soon after my A Levels.I'm planning to do a VFX Compositing course there which'll last for about 7 months and once I'm done with that,I'll be heading for a university in UK with my application.
I'm learning how to draw as well since I pretty much suck at it and for that reason I've got the best art guide ever for beginners!Well,if I study that,I'll be able to draw like a pro in a year or so.[Hopefully]

 

[Hephistocles]

IELTS is really just to check that your English is good enough that you're not going to struggle understanding what the lecturers say, so that shouldn't be a worry. If you do as much computing as you can, then that will boost your portfolio, but don't worry if you can't take all the exams. Universities understand that not all schools offer every subject, so they're quite happy just to look at the grades for the exams that you *have* taken. They might find it strange if Computing was offered but you didn't take it, but that's not your problem. I would say you'll need at least A in Physics and Maths, probably at least one of them should be A* to get to Cambridge.

I'm afraid I haven't really got any useful links for A-level Physics, but if there's stuff out there, I'm sure you could find it with Google.

 

[Abhishek Neogi]

IELTS is really just to check that your English is good enough that you're not going to struggle understanding what the lecturers say, so that shouldn't be a worry. If you do as much computing as you can, then that will boost your portfolio, but don't worry if you can't take all the exams. Universities understand that not all schools offer every subject, so they're quite happy just to look at the grades for the exams that you *have* taken. They might find it strange if Computing was offered but you didn't take it, but that's not your problem. I would say you'll need at least A in Physics and Maths, probably at least one of them should be A* to get to Cambridge.

I'm afraid I haven't really got any useful links for A-level Physics, but if there's stuff out there, I'm sure you could find it with Google.

Do you follow/refer any specific books for learning Physics and Math?If you could tell me the names of those books which you refer to,then I might look em' up.

 

[Hephistocles]

I really don't remember, sorry! It was nothing special, just a book on AS/A-Level Physics given to us by the school. For Maths it was the official OCR books that we used in preparation for the exam.