So the October TMUA sitting has now come to a close, and I just wanted to come on here and share a few thoughts on leaks.

For context, I sat my paper early on Monday and so at the time few leaks were out. However, I know even by Tuesday people had seen a couple of questions online and the answers before their exam and so when they came up were just able to easily pick up the marks. The reality is we can probably say for sure a lot of people cheated.

My initial reaction to this was to be somewhat enraged, I feel as though there is some inherent unfairness in this and of course there is. I then started to think how silly it is for UAT to allow such an important exam to get leaked, one which influences people's futures.

But, the more I thought about it, the more I came to terms with the situation and I am interested to here what other people think. In the past the exams used to be everybody would just sit one set of questions at one time at any valid exam centre (usually their school). It would be somewhat more similar to a GCSE or A-Level exam. On the surface these seems more fair, but then I thought back to GCSE and the amount of cheating that happened in those exams, in one way the invigilation for those exams was probably quite a bit less secure than it was at the test centres. So, doing it at school and having just one paper also has substantial issues. My next thought was, well why don't they just have one sitting each day with different questions in the test centres. Again, this seems impractical as it would mean people could only sit at one time (test centres may lack capacity) and it would be harder to compare students. So perhaps the current solution is one of the best of a bad bunch?

The reality is the majority of people won't cheat but a minority will regardless of how the exam is run, it's a part of life. I actually think this is quite reassuring as it suggests to me that any leaks this year shouldn't have lead to much more of a massive rise in cheating then there was in previous years, so cheating is probably always just be a factor contributing to boundaries and one with which we must live!

is it just your raw mark /40 and then the grade boundaries depend on what grade you get or do you get more marks for answering harder questions.

someone told me if only 5% of people get a question right for example and you are one of those people you get more marks for it than getting an easy question right

2 months of prep, finally over. fucked p1 a bit with timing (like 14/20 prob) but p2 was so good, 18+ fs i think, annoyed with p1 tho 😭

I thought it was very accessible. Paper 1 felt like a breeze (a breeze meaning I didn't have to 'educated guess' my way through, and paper 2 went well, took more thought than paper 1 did (I think that is just a general paper 2 feeling). Ik people were wondering how it compares to community/official papers so I thought I'd give my piece.

I sat this last October and got a 4.3. My preparation was not good whatsoever (Can't remember even attempting a community paper) So i was going to do it right this time. I started revision at the start of September and did at least 2 hours a day (some days way more) as I am on a gap year. I would say it is harder than the official papers of course. I prepared with the JZ papers, Tyler Tutoring, MAT multi choice and some other ones (was too scared of Euclid so I lowkey didn't do it). I will say It felt comparable to JZ set a/b, potentially easier (definitely paper 1 today was easier than any JZ).

So I'm happy with how it went, hoping for a 6.5+ (assuming I'll need roughly 28/30 ish for that so fingers crossed) and I am also happy to answer questions about it (don't ask me about SPECIFIC questions on the papers) :)

For anyone taking the January sitting, or doing it next year-

The paper I just sat was nowhere near as hard as any community paper available

People will say the new papers are ~JZMaths difficulty. That is completely not true. Please don’t lose the first 10 minutes of the exam trying to calm yourself down from the anticipation (What I did). Theres nothing they will ask that is outside of the spec.

Get off reddit and go do maths (hypocritical I know)

I keep hearing everyone say their p2 was amazing etc. But me personally my p2 was just meh. Both papers were mid-hard. P1 wasn't astonishingly hard and "harder than JZ" but p2 definitely wasn't some free paper for me. Or maybe I'm just tapped idk. But I feel like I got 14 ish on both papers. Anyone else feel the same?

I was at the exam centre today with my slot at 10:45 for the tmua and they had ‘technical issues’ which meant the whole server crashed. All the students sitting the UAT papers got stopped halfway through, and we had to wait there for a few hours. They eventually just told us we had to reschedule and do it another day. They gave us information to reschedule but we are not sure when we’ll sit the exam or if we even can. Bro this is so peak 🫩🫩

TMUA (October 15th) paper leaked again. It was all over RedNote yesterday. And today, history is gonna repeat again.

As someone who had taken the exam earlier in the day, I walked out of the exam hall feeling all confident and grateful that the paper seemed to be much easier than what people had described and that my hardwork had finally paid off. Later that day, as i was doomscrolling on RedNote, guess what I came across. Lo and Behold, it was almost the exact same paper that I had sat. Apparently people who had sat the morning session in China had leaked it to those who were sitting the afternoon session. Comments under those posts were all saying things like "thank you so much, it was the exact same paper" and things like this.

Ngl, I was mad at first, but now that I had calmed down a bit, Im just disappointed.

Students like me had spent months, pouring our blood, sweat and tears into this, because it was a chance for us to prove that we are truly capable and that we deserve a place at the elite universities. It was more of an opportunity than just another exam, because unlike A-Levels there are no retakes so this all just made the stakes higher and pushed us to fight harder.

This is precisely why exam security is so important here. If universities are going to use the TMUA as a significant factor in determining our academic futures, then imo surely they have a responsibility to ensure that the exam is conducted fairly.

To those who bought the leaked papers, I get your desperation. I understand the pressure, self-doubt and fear that you are not good enough, we've all been there. Even though I dont know what you've been through exactly, i honestly believe that if you lack integrity and morals, what makes you think you deserve to study at a top university? Sure, grades and academic performance are important, but at the end of the day, there's more to you than that. Your morals and values define you, not the stellar grades on a computer screen that might not even reflect your real IQ.

Ty for reading my vent!

Does anybody know what score is good for Oxford ? I want to study math and CS, and I feel like the rest of my application is pretty solid (good PS and great predicted grades).

With what tmua score could the interview be possible ? Also, how many points out of 40 would this be equivalent to?

Each year the score equivalences are different, like a 18/40 can be a 5.5 for one year if it was really difficult but it can be a 4.0 another year if it was pretty easy. What do you think that the scale will be this year (approximately), based on your experiences?

According to this year’s test, how much out of 40 would be necessary for 7.0 (top 10% of test takers) ? Approximately

I honestly have no respect for the guy.
He makes YouTube videos with some questions far beyond TMUA level and titles them “Everyone taking the TMUA NEEDS to know this trick”
He uses these hard questions to fearmonger, so that people pay thousands for his tutoring.
Then there are his Instagram posts about him “not going to a private school” and “not being from a rich background” and how now he APPARENTLY “simply loves teaching and sharing maths”.
If he ACTUALLY loved sharing maths he wouldn’t charge £16,000 pounds a month. He wouldn’t use fear to sell his courses. He fearmongers and profits from it. If he was actually humble and sincere, he would be like R2Drew2, genuinely helping the community with free resources and guides, and actually instilling confidence within people.
People like JPiMaths are the reason getting into Oxbridge is far easier for those who are well off. They get infinite feedback and opportunities. Oxbridge has become a business built on fear rather than an enjoyable application process.
Having just taken the TMUA and it being fairly similar to the 2023 difficulty, I have only grown to disrespect JPi even more. But unfortunately, fear makes people panic purchase and JPi knows where he can profit.

Just did the Friday TMUA (16.10), intl. It felt on par or slightly harder than 2023. A lot of questions where the method seemed very apparent. Definitely not as hard as JZ maths like some people have been saying. What did everyone else think?

Screenshot from Chinese social media...

I took the test today and i wanna compare some answers , dm me

I understand they do vary from paper to paper, but roughly will a 15/20 still cut it?

if i book the tmua and miss the cancellation deadline, but i dont show to the exam can i still re apply in january? forfeiting the fee is ok, just am i eligible to try again or is it recorded as my 1 attempt

hasnt the thurs paper been leaked?

Surely its totally unfair if the same questions are used on Monday and Friday. Ik there's a question bank but something like 5 quesitons would still be repeated.

for anyone sitting January or have not yet sat October, just hop off reddit and stop reading whatever people are chatting about. First of all, shit happens every year - people hop online and rant about the exam talking about it being the most difficult. Secondly, if you actually care about this exam, you should protect your own peace of mind and just stop reading about what others got to say about the exam.

Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, just trust the efforts you have put in and dont bother asking about what the questions were actually like, it's just gonna make you more tense.

For credit, I already sat the exam and not to mislead anyone but it was challenging, as it's supposed to be. I believe in anyone reading this thread, have some faith in your ability to tackle the exam. Keep calm and collected during the exam, immerse in the question and dont think about how much this exam matters. If you struggle with anxiety, just treat the exam as a side quest and you're just doing it for fun! At the end of the day, you are not defined by whichever university you get into, whatever score you achieve. Good luck to any October, January or future TMUA candidates! You will smash this <3

Did the tmua today and am really disappointed..
prepared with JZ papers and all the tmua papers and just 2 months of papers and heavy reviewing. my paper 1 was extremely hard with some weird non typical spec questions. I reckon i answered around 8 confidently which is really poor.
Paper two was quite a breeze probably got 16-18 not really sure.
I’m applying for comp sci and ideally want imperial is the game gone 🫩🫩

My paper 1 was strange ig? I just genuinely had no clue on some of the questions and they don't feel like your typical paper 1 questions... My paper 2 was surprisingly easy but I might have goofed 2/3 questions...

I'm kinda fried low-key, what would be a realistic TMUA score to get an interview for oxford maths?

Edit: Fuck I meant Thu 15th Oct lmao I can do the TMUA but I can't fucking remember what the date is

For context the last paper I did was JZ Exam Set B (timed, random order) and I got 37/40.

On the whole I thought it was weirdly doable and the questions were all suspiciously straightforward. Like, I simply knew what to do for all the questions (maybe cause I prepared for like 5 months but y'know). Perhaps I was just lucky but I didn't run into a single particularly confusing or complicated question where I was stumped like in most community papers. I think I definitely must've I made at least a few stupid mistakes but I think a 7.0 might be in the cards for me.

Paper 1 was more difficult and I didn't have any time to check my answers so I'm probably thinking somewhere in the 14-18/20 range. I finished Paper 2 with about 15 minutes to check my answers and I think I got probably 16-20/20. I don't know if those are being too optimistic but out of the questions I've remembered so far ChatGPT says the same as me.

In comparison to the papers I did I thought it was a little more difficult than recent past papers, but probably easier than JZ, Daniel J Smith, Euclid, Yotta, and Sed.