Foreign Perspectives

The time during the exam just flew in and for the first time ever I didn’t have the luxury of having enough time to check the answers. Having said that, I usually end up “correcting” things to the wrong answer when I’ve lots of time to play with. It was also amongst the most tiring exams that I’ve done too. Since it was effectively made up of around 70 short questions (ie 8 multiple choice, and six from eight short questions with up to 10 parts each) you needed to keep the concentration full-on right through the paper.

The multiple choice questions turned out to be generally quite doable and I’ve only one almost complete guess amongst them when my brain just couldn’t get around a question on red-shifts and Hubble’s constant. Overall on that I reckoned I picked up, on my pessimistic view, around 19.5% out of a possible 28% so half-way to a pass on that bit which was a good start.

Part two on the sun & stars book was generally fine and I could have had a reasonable stab at all four questions. It’s harder to estimate the performance on those ones so I reckoned something like another 18% from that although it could have been higher. Picking the third question turned out to require some thought as I couldn’t do 100% of either of the two remaining with certainty so I followed my thinking from last week and did the one where I could get the highest score rather than just plump for the one that was in my more comfortable topic area.

Part three on cosmology looked horrible at the start. I started off on my two least worst, choosing the one that I thought I could do most parts of first. As it turned out, that was actually my worst question in that section and I think I did really well on the two almost-essay questions in the hard-core cosmology bit. I say almost-essay as whilst the answer for them took the form of an essay the questions were effectively broken up into 15 parts for the second of the two (although it was the most essay-like of the two). Net effect is that for an essay question it looked easy to estimate the marks for it. In the exam I was estimating another 18% for this bit but I think it’ll be a little higher as I checked some of the stuff afterwards.

Taken overall that gives me a pessimistic estimate of around 60% which is nicely clear of the pass mark. High end mark? Maybe into the 70s but I’ll know better when the exam paper is released later this week.

What does seem clear from this is that it’s better to consider the second and third parts of the paper as if they were around 40 short questions that just happen to be presented in four groups. For instance, in one case the part that I couldn’t do in one question amounted to only 2 out of a possible 12 per cent. In fact, with that thinking it’s probably better to aim for the questions with the most parts.

Also notable is that in a lot of cases you had, say, part b (i) introducing a term then parts ii, iii, and iv went on to talk about things related to that. For example, you might have something say “define a black hole” whilst the next part asked what a massive star would leave behind. It’s going to be a black hole, isn’t it? (no, that’s not an actual question from the paper) Because of that, it definitely pays to read the whole question before answering any part of it.

Turnout was extremely low with only three from seven there. As one who’d not been pointed out this was a very lonely course without the proper number of tutorials and I think that contributed to the high dropout rate throughout the year.

Since the OU claim to have over 200,000 students enrolled in courses at any one time and with a sizeable number of those being quite computer literate, you’d think that there would be more than 15 active blogs written by their students. So where are they?

Although I don’t constantly trawl for them, the 14 that are currently listed in the blog roll are all the active ones that I’ve found and includes those pinched from the blog rolls of those on the list plus some more who are no longer active. Those that aren’t actively writing include some who have completed their courses and don’t seem to be continuing with the blog at the moment.

There’s also at least one OU tutor who went and deleted what was far and away the best ever advert that A207 has had in the form of a blog that she ran whilst tutoring the course. Not only did she stop writing it when she finished her tutoring roll but she deleted it altogether. Why do people do stuff like that? I’d bookmarked it for the day when I get around to doing the course and now it’s gone 🙁

And then there’s the bloggers who run out of steam for one reason or another. That happens to bloggers everywhere so I guess it’s no different when it’s OU bloggers that are no different though with the added issues of time pressure from the degree itself.

But none of that really explains why there are so few OU bloggers around. With 200k students to draw upon I’d have expected at least 100 and perhaps even more given that many of the courses offered are all about writing.

In theory the answer is simple: when the exchange rate is the best. The only problem with that is that nobody knows when the “best” rate will be reached.

Fortunately there is another approach which works well no matter what the exchange rates get up to and that’s using what’s technically called pound cost averaging. Sounds complicated but what it involves is you buying your foreign currency regularly throughout the time from now ’til your holiday arrives. That way you avoid the ups and downs of exchange rates.

Those ups and downs can be quite substantial too. Over the past year the euro has swung up and down around 12% whilst the pound seems on a steady rise against the dollar (up around 14% over the last 12 months). You might think that it would be better to leave off buying dollars ’til you get an even better rate but we might be at the peak already and just not know it yet.

So how do you go about it? The simplest and cheapest way is to use something like the FairFX card which is free via that link and offers the best rates around. Minimum top-up is only a tenner and you can top-up via standing order which cuts out a lot of hassle. Alternatives are from CaxtonFX (minimum top-up £100) and the Post Office (minimum top-up £50, charge around 3.5%).

Quite a nice way of saving for that next holiday and it should save you money too.

All being well, I will have completed my run-through of the revision notes by this afternoon so that leaves Saturday and Sunday for some last-minute stuff.

My plan at the moment is that I’ll put the books to one side and go through the short question sections of one or two past papers on Saturday with a final read-through of the revision notes over the course of Sunday. That’s if I find I can answer the first past paper from memory, of course; otherwise Saturday will be drafted in as a revision session too. One of the more important things to do is to look at the formulae and constants that are given with the exam paper and check that I know what each of them are for.

Also to be done is assembling all the bits and pieces for the day itself. As it’s a science exam that list is a little bit longer than usual with the addition of a calculator and my drawing set in case I feel the urge to run up a diagram at some point. Also in there are the gel refills for the pens though there’s not so much writing for this one as for the psychology so I’ll likely just use the ordinary refill. I’ve still to print the exam allocation page and track down the passport for id. And, of course, the Lucozade and wine gums. Despite the vast amount of revision I’ve done for this in comparison that for previous exams I suspect there’ll be a number of “wine gum moments” (ie when I’m staring at the exam paper and haven’t a clue where to start).

‘Tis odd to think that this time last year I was working on the Child Development revision. I see from the drastic increase in hits on the site that lots of people are doing that right now.

Although you might expect America to be just like a version of England it turns out that it’s very different in a number of areas, notably in terms of financial sophistication.

One very important point to note from the outset is that foreign exchange is not something that American banks generally deal with. Whilst in England you can change foreign currency in any bank, you can only do that in the largest of branches in America. Also worth noting is that ATMs aren’t as common in America as they are in the UK and you won’t be able to use a cash-back facility so it’s worth carrying, say, $100 in cash.

That lack of foreign exchange facilities means that you must take cash in American dollars. These come in $1, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 notes (“bills”) with each one being the same shape, size and colour so you need to look at the amount printed on them. You do get used to that lack of difference quite quickly. The dollar is divided into 100 cents and these come in 25c (“quarter”), 10c (“dime”), 5c (“nickel”) and 1c pieces. There are $1 coins but these are very unpopular and hence rare. It’s handy to take about $100 in cash (preferably in a mix of 10s and 20s); this is available commission (but not charge) free at the Post Office. The downside of cash is that if it’s stolen, it’s gone as holiday insurance rarely covers cash to any significant amount so if you are taking it, limit the amount to $100 or so. If you buy foreign currency on a card, it counts as a cash advance with all the charges that implies.

Travellers cheques (or, in America, “travelers checks”) are much better than cash in that they can be replaced fairly easily if stolen (keep a note of the numbers, date bought and where you bought them). However, they are equally expensive to purchase and there is often a charge to cash them too. In America you can use dollar cheques as though they were cash in shops (even where they say “no checks accepted”). If you have any left over after your holiday, keep them rather than cash them in your bank as you can use them later (there is no expiry date) and this will save you paying the commission again. If you buy travellers cheques on a card, it counts as a cash advance with all the charges that implies. Make sure that your travellers cheques come with the Visa or Mastercard or American Express brands as others may not be accepted.

Credit/Charge cards are used nearly everywhere these days. If you don’t have a card already, you should get one (Visa or Mastercard) even if you only plan to use it for emergencies. Bear in mind that not everywhere accepts them though and also that not all places take both Visa and Mastercard. If pushed, you can get cash on these cards either in an ATM or over the counter in a bank but save this for emergencies only as you’ll get charged a cash advance fee, currency conversion fee and interest. The exchange rate used is much better than you’ll get for either cash or travellers cheques. You will need a credit or charge card to hire a car and to reserve hotel rooms.

Debit cards are almost always branded Visa/Electron/Plus or Mastercard/Maestro/Cirrus and work in the corresponding systems however sometimes you may be issued with a card which can only be used in your own country: check that one of the Visa/Electron/Plus or Mastercard/Maestro/Cirrus symbols are on your card as if they aren’t you probably can’t use the card internationally. Charges are as per credit cards except that you don’t get charged interest on cash advances.

Cash cards are often limited to the country in which they are issued but if they have a Plus or Cirrus symbol on them, you can use them abroad too. Charges are usually the same as for debit cards in ATMs. The principle advantage of having a cash card is that they are a lot less attractive for thieves as they can’t be used without the PIN.

Prepaid cards are becoming increasingly popular with CaxtonFX and FairFX offering excellent value. Both offer cards denominated in dollars, euros and sterling. For travel to America take either the dollar or the sterling cards. Charges on both are broadly similar with Caxton taking a £10 charge (refunded) upfront and having a minimum top-up of £100 whilst FairFX charges a non-refundable £9.95 (but free by clicking on the link here) and have a minimum top-up of £10.

As well as the above options you also have a choice of providers of the various methods of payment. Travellers cheques may be offered “commission free” by your bank (and the UK Post Office), although note that this is not the same as “free”.

If you use one of the banks within the Global Alliance banks (BNPParibas, Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of America, Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Westpac) you can use machines from one of the other Global Alliance banks without transaction charges (currency conversion fees still apply).

This article is part of our series on holiday planning which covers things like how to book your holiday, how to take your holiday money, what to pack, etc.