I have helped students for several years in applying to the Cambridge Economics course. Below I give some starting tips on how to prepare for the ECAA – the admissions test required when applying to the Cambridge Economics course.
I will not go into too much detail on the basics such as the format of the test. For information about the structure of the test, please see the link here and click on ‘Entry Requirements’.
Below I give four general tips on the mathematics component of the ECAA. More specifics and resources will follow to help with this.
1. Practice
Get lots of practice. You should go through all the relevant questions in the past papers. In other words use the past papers but exclude the problem solving questions which are no longer in the syllabus. You should try to find other sources of practice questions (see below).
This will help build a conscious and subconscious familiarity with the types of questions typically asked. One common pattern is finding a maximum or minimum subject to a constraint. For example suppose the question asks to find the point on a particular line that lies closest to the origin, in other words minimise the distance between a point and the origin subject to that point being on a particular line.
In these types of questions with optimisation and a constraint, it is usually important to substitute the equation first, and then conduct the necessary differentiation to find the maximum or minimum point. I plan to discuss this pattern in a future blogpost.
By practising similar types of questions and doing multiple papers, you will also get practice at speeding up in doing these questions.
2. The importance of timing
That brings us onto the next topic – timing yourself. Speed is really critical to doing well in the ECAA. When doing past papers, you should be timing how long it takes you. Ideally record this information and try to progressively become faster.
In the exam, you may not have time to answer all of the questions. You should also think about how best to allocate your time. For example if you are looking at a question and have no clue where to start, it may be worth leaving that question and moving on.
If you asked an economist to create a model of time management, to maximise the number of marks achieved in the time available, you should equalise the “ marginal marks gained per extra second spent”, over all questions. In other words, if spending an extra 10 seconds on question 1 gives you 0.5 marks on average, but spending an extra 10 seconds on question 40 gives you 0 marks on average, you should not reallocate time towards question 1 and away from question 40. What this actually means and going into this model (and its assumptions) in more detail requires a whole blogpost in itself, but it serves to reinforce some key conclusions about time management:
- Do not spend time on questions where spending more time will not raise your score much.
- Linked to point 1, spending too much time on a hard question comes with an opportunity cost – you may forgo easier marks on other questions as a result.
- Spend extra time on questions where doing a little more work is likely to give you an answer.
3. Read the question
Some of the questions will have a last line or an extra step designed to trick you. For example after solving a quadratic equation, you may be asked for the product of the roots in the last line of the question. Another example is solving a quadratic equation using a substitution, for example solving \(x^4-2x^2+1=0\) using the substitution \(y=x^2\). Some students forget that once they have found \(y\), they also need to find \(x\) to find the roots.
Look at what the question specifically asks for at the end and be aware of the kind of answer you are working towards.
4. Use online resources
There are some useful online resources to help with preparation for the ECAA. Many resources are paid but my hope is that with this blog, more resources can be made for free or at more accessible prices.
Some sources of mathematical questions include:
- ECAA books available on Amazon, ECAA online question banks such as ECAA Ninja. I have not used these services but have generally heard good things. The issue is that the ECAA Ninja in particular is very expensive but does offer a lot in return.
- Other types of papers, for example MAT or TMUA papers.
- Free online practice questions will be posted to this website in due course, as well as worked answers to the past paper questions.
- A tutoring agency has uploaded a practice paper and some practice essays. See here.
Please note that I have no affiliation with any of these resources.
More to follow on the essay component, mathematics component and helpful resources.
For my next post on types of maths questions in the ECAA, see the link below:
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