
Can you solve it? Would you get into Oxford? - virtuous_signal
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/nov/04/can-you-solve-it-would-you-get-into-oxford
======
virtuous_signal
This year's test paper is here: [https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/study-
here/undergraduate-study/ma...](https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/study-
here/undergraduate-study/maths-admissions-test)

I was surprised and (as a math major) delighted to see these sorts of
problems. There are a lot of standard topics tested in nonstandard ways on the
math portion (integration via change of variables, asymptotic analysis,
determinants to name a few). Questions that would be difficult to "teach-to-
the-test" for. I personally would have found the computer science questions
impossible at that tender age. The question in the article is a non-obvious
greedy algorithm. Inside the test paper you'll see a question that basically
"discovers" Floyd's cycle detection. I don't know if there is any equivalent
of this for high schoolers in the US, or if it would even be possible.

