Cambridge Degrees

This is pretty much what my brother said. He said they would all work their guts out, for the vast majority of them to be able to access around 20% of the questions.

He was a bit more prosaic about it though, in that he said there were students they who were so phenomenally gifted that scale was necessary.

Maths at cambridge was tough. I should have done computer science instead. I got completely lost in my second year and only survived the 3rd year by choosing courses that didn't build so much on previous years.
I suspect things have only got tougher in the last 40 years too.

I was at Cambridge (not maths but a STEM subject) 30 years ago, and it wasn't like that at all. But the undergraduate I know there at the moment (friend's son, studying law) does describe it pretty much like this. It's sad.

Maths is a Hard degree, especially at Cambridge. That's a pretty negative spin.

I did Natural Sciences. I'd got top marks (100% or close to) in every single one of my 5 A levels (all the sciences, double maths). I got there, and no matter how much work I did, I couldn't get myself to a point where I was going to do well at the physics exams. I worked 80 hours a week, did or attempted properly all the questions we were set, attended every lecture, every supervision (bar one, where I was crying too hard to see never mind perform), did every past paper for the last 20 years and still got a third (in that part of first year). The rest of my marks were such I got a high 2:2 in first year.

Maths in first year (nat sci maths not mathmo maths) was taught by people who loved researching maths, not who loved teaching it. The teaching was often (to me) opaque, and I was someone who taught myself pretty much the whole of KS3 and 4 maths from the textbook.

I switched rapidly away from mathematically based subjects (having arrived planning to be a physicist), and had stressful but manageable 2nd and 3rd years.

Don't get me wrong, I still worked 55? hours a week, at least, in those years, and it was still mad busy and really really hard, and the stress made me ill, but I did also have a great time while all the above applied.

I learnt loads, I rowed, got involved with loads of college stuff, had great friends. The amount a crammed into my brain astonishes me. I have something to look back on that was so hard it still to this day reassures me that no matter what I will prevail (and I've done some pretty hard stuff since then).

I still genuinely don't know, looking back and knowing what I know now, if I would go back and do it again.

Not Cambridge, but I find that post very sad.
You have people like this Fields medallist Jung Huh who was not the 'quickest'
Mathematics is at the highest level is art
Creativity needs space to thrive. No good comes of being squashed and pressured like this

Sounds pretty accurate in terms of recent experience on the part of a Cantab maths graduate I know - the majority appear to get drawn into competitive overworking and undersleeping which staff appear to so little or nothing to address. Not maths related, but in a science, a Prof. I know at Cambridge told me that their students are super intelligent - way better grades than her at A levels - but mostly hyper anxious and with limited life skills. 8 WK terms exacerbate the issue as they pack same amount into less time. If I recall correctly students are also told that it is forbidden to get paid work (obviously uni has no power to forbid but demonstrates the intensity.)

This sounds quite course- specific as I didn’t work anything like these hours for a different degree . I got a 2:1 more easily than this from enjoying my subject whilst doing a lot of other things too.

It would probably be more helpful to ask a fairly recent maths student , too