Cambridge brings back entrance exam after 30 years (could you get in?)
IT WAS designed to identify the nation’s brightest students but was dropped 30 years ago amid accusations that it favoured the better-off.
Now the written entrance exam for Cambridge University is being reintroduced for all applicants, sparking new concerns that it will discriminate against state school pupils less likely to benefit from expensive coaching than pupils of fee-paying schools.
Critics of the idea include former Labour Minister Alan Milburn, now chairman of a social mobility commission, who warned that Cambridge risked raising ‘further barriers’ for bright students from less advantaged backgrounds.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal some of the conundrums that candidates may face. One question from a sample paper requires students to discuss whether ‘the recent European migrant crisis has challenged or reinforced racism’. Another is more philosophical, asking: ‘Must all revolutions necessarily fail?’
Would-be undergraduates may also be asked to compose an essay on the writer George Orwell’s observation that ‘there are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them’, or tackle maths puzzles.
The tests are tailored for different subjects and mix traditional essay topics with multiple choice questions. They are being brought back by the university because while so many applicants achieve As or A*s at A-level, fewer are taking AS-levels, a traditional indicator of academic potential.
The new university-wide written exams, which will replace a hotchpotch of tests already faced by about half of those applying, will be sat by every candidate while they are still at school. The first will take place this October and November.
They will not, however, replace the university’s notoriously tricky interview at which candidates are often put on the spot by fiendish questions such as ‘Instead of politicians, why don’t we let the managers of Ikea run the country?’
Cambridge said the exams, which will be sat by pupils in the year before they take their A-levels, should not require any extra study and were just one of a number of assessments used to determine whether teenagers should be offered a place. A spokesman said many of the questions were designed to find out how students approached complex issues, and would help the university select those with the skills to cope with demanding courses.
Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said: ‘For the sake of the whole country, Cambridge and other leading universities need to concentrate on identifying the brightest and the best.’