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Scholarship Examinations

exams

The College-wide Scholarship examination is held just before the start of Semester 2 each year. Students in their Senior Fresh year are encouraged to consider sitting this examination (referred to as 'Schol') as an overall First brings substantial rewards. Recommendations for scholarship will be based on all papers, subject to a mark of at least 65 being achieved in all papers. Students who obtain an overall I based on the mean of their marks in the two subjects are recommended to the Board for election to Scholarship. Scholars obtain free Commons, are entitled to rooms free of charge for nine months of the year, are entitled to remission of student charges and receive a (rather small!) salary. Students who sit 'Schol', however, comment that a major benefit regardless of success is the camaraderie and closeness created among the group preparing for the examination. .

Overall Structure of Economics I and II and Quantitative methods papers

The Department of Economics is responsible for three papers in the Scholarship examination: Economics I, Economics II, and Quantitative methods. The main focus of the questions on these papers will be on the subject-areas covered in economics modules in Michaelmas term in the SF year, with Economics I relating to module EC2010, Economics II relating to modules EC2020 and EC2030, and Quantitative methods relating to module EC2040. Economics II will contain enough questions to give an adequate choice to students who are taking only one of EC2020, EC2030.

The questions on all three papers will range more widely than the confines of the SF Michaelmas term lectures, i.e. they will not be as closely related to the lecture courses as would be expected of those on an annual examination paper. In Economics I, for example, questions may draw on material from EC1010 (or equivalent), both microeconomics and macroeconomics, as well as from EC2010 (Michaelmas term). In Quantitative methods questions may draw on material from EC1030, both mathematics and statistics, as well as from EC2040 (Michaelmas term). Good answers on any of the papers might draw on all the economics (or mathematics and statistics in the case of the Quantitative methods paper) that the examinee has been exposed to since entering College.

Students are encouraged to go beyond the confines of the reading lists: your preparation might for example include material drawn from The Economist; VoxEU at http://www.voxeu.org/ ; ESRI reports, such as the Quarterly Economic Commentary, at www.esri.ie. This list is not exhaustive. For a very efficient way to see what is happening on the 'respectable blogs', see http://economistsview.typepad.com/

Structure of individual papers, each being timed at 2¼ hours

    Economics 1
    Answer one compulsory question and any two of the remaining four.
    Sample Paper

    Economics 2
    Answer one question from two in the compulsory section and any two from the remaining six.
    Sample Paper

    Quantitative Methods
    Answer all three questions.
    Sample Paper

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