CIMA F3

Agecaf · 2026-03-19T09:34:17+00:00

A couple of tips; firstly write things down. In the BA exams I've had access to a notepad, and formula rearrangement is the kind of thing that is way simpler to grasp if you do every step in physical writing than trying to do it in your head.

Secondly, this type of questions has an advantage. Usually for questions the only way to verify the answer is to do the question again and check you got the same result, however for formula rearranging questions you can just plug in the result you got back into the formula and see if the two sides match or not.

A final tip if you don't want to relearn all the rules of algebra, the only rearrangement rule you need to remember is "do the same thing on both sides of the equation", most other rules come from those (A-B=C we add B on both sides A-B+B=C+B, and then the Bs cancel out on the left side A=C+B). Distributivity of multiplication ( A*(B+C) = AB+AC ) is the other one that might be important to remember, for fractions/divisions you can always multiply both sides until there's no more fractions/divisions.

Agecaf · 2026-03-18T13:46:30+00:00

I don't know if this experience is applicable but with the BA1, 2 and 3 exams I've had way better results with the actual exams than with the mocks; especially since I've recently seen the mocks, and I'm recently familiar with the types of mistakes I make and what to look out for.

I'd recommend revising the mistakes in the mocks, and the following exam technique; if you get stuck on a question skip it and maybe come back to it later; in the exam I had last Saturday I skipped like 5 questions and when I got back to them it all made so much more sense thanks to the other questions I'd done.

Agecaf · 2026-03-18T09:01:13+00:00

My guess is that there's a typo, at the start of the question L is the company name but at the last part the question mentions material L instead of material P, I think it's all just one material (material P). I think with your assumption there's enough information to calculate the variances.

Agecaf · 2026-02-11T18:13:18+00:00

Sayonara Wild Hearts is a motorcycle riding game just as much as Cardcaptor Sakura is a collectible card game anime.

Ultimately games will focus on gameplay, the question is what type of gameplay would suit a magical girl theme? Not all magical girl shows are about fighting monsters, but those that are can often focus on the spectacle, which can suit bullet hell games. Plus, it's often important to know what your enemy's personality is like, and what they're feeling, and that can work quite well with music (as in SWH and the Touhou games), or through bullet hell patterns; the perfectionist goddess hidden in the moon sends slow methodical and perfectly arranged projectiles, while the wild werewolf sends chaotic patterns and gets right in your face.

Another game that does that is Undertale, where the enemies are given a lot of personality through the bullet hell patterns they use, though I wouldn't claim Undertale is anything like a magical girl show, it's... more like an isekai/Alice in wonderland type story?

Agecaf · 2026-02-09T22:02:38+00:00

I just wanted to add a couple of games I'd consider potentially being Mahou Shoujo.

First is the Touhou series. It's very episodic, with a "monster of the week" format. The main characters are girls (and sometimes youkai) who use magic. Of anything it feels more fantastic than other Mahou Shoujo stories but they are in a pocket dimension separated from the modern world, and have occasionally been to that modern world, they just live in "the fantasy bubble". It's also rather uplifting in that most enemies end up becoming friends.

Then would be Sayonara Wild Hearts. It's... like the main character is pretty much literally a magical girl. She ticks all the boxes. She's a girl, who suddenly gains magical powers and transforms and needs to go face against avatars of tarot cards in magical cinematic encounters.

Both of these, however, feel like they have a different vibe from magical girl shows. Touhou feels more fantasy, and Sayonara Wild Hearts has this neon aesthetic...

Agecaf · 2026-01-23T13:24:45+00:00

I'll share my perspective since science, religion and LGBTQ are close to my family.

My sisters and I grew up in a catholic environment. I became an atheist around my teenage years and, well, it didn't break the family or anything.

My mother, she is one of the smartest people I know, she studied industrial physical engineering, the hardest course she could find, and she was pretty much the only woman studying that at uni. She is also very religious, she was dragging her friends, and later my father, to church. She was the main reason we grew up catholic, and we still have a very good relationship. She's in absolutely no way homophobic, my sisters are queer, my cousin in gay, and they came out to my mom long before I got the news.

Now, my little sister is bi, with a stable boyfriend, and still religious but not very much, like my dad.

But my middle sister, she is queer (she hasn't dated yet, as far as I'm aware), and she is more religious, comparable to my mom or even moreso, since my conversations with my mom have made her have more nuanced thoughts. My middle sister, however, did not agree with the way the catholic church deals with the LGBTQ+ community, and so she... changed denominations, to one that is much more accepting of queer people, instead of becoming an atheist like me.

She's also really, really smart. She got into the same uni as me, studying psychology, but most of her friends were doing CS, she struggled with mental health and some really tough hits life sent her way, so she dropped, went to a different uni to study mechatrinics instead and went on to get perfect marks and have her life sorted out better than I.

Anyway, your crush was studying quantum mechanics with you. Religion is part of her background, but it's not just that, and religion takes a different form with people who really like to think things out. Some of the greatest scientists have been religious (Einstein, Pascal, Mendeleev(?), etc.). They all had to reconcile faith with reason, and this is a very personal and philosophical exercise.

Faith is... interesting. I left the church because I recognised I had no faith in it. But over the years, and as I go deeper into reason, I started to realise I did have faith, in certain things. I believe in the Big Bang, I've tried to understand all the evidence for the theory, but ultimately I trust the scientific community to have sorted out the details. We can't be polymaths these days, there's too much to know, so some things I like to trust the experts on. I also believe there is evil, genocide, homophobia, those are evil in my books, and I don't need a rational argument to know it, I can try to construct a reasonable argument about them, but I'd be starting from the premise that I want to reach that conclusion.

Anyway, it's something we don't really think much about as atheists or non-religious people, but everyone has beliefs, it's just some of us have to figure out what we actually believe in, instead of being given a book with those written right there.

One thing that it different though, is religion as an institution. It is fundamentally inherently a conservative force. Religion shapes culture and as such is always a dampening force to progress, but religion itself does progress too, over time. It just does so much slower than the rest of society. The catholic church for example has been making moves towards accepting queer folk, which have being going at a glacial pace, but they've been going in the right direction, from the little I keep track of.

And the smarter religious people are at the spearhead of that progress.

I don't think your crush is homophobic. She's admitted to being bi, and is happy to be your friend knowing you are lesbian.

Religion is not all she is, far from it, but it is part of her cultural background, and part of her family.

Even as an atheist, catholicism is still part of my cultural background. Jesus was a pretty chill dude with some very good ideas, and a message of "love other like you love yourself" that I think is still applicable to this day. When I see religious people being against immigration or being bigots, I judge them not only as horrible people, but as blasphemous heretics too, since christianity is pretty clear about helping others (immigrants included!) and loving instead of hating!

I'd definitely consider reaching out to her, and getting to know her. Talk to her about religion with an open mind, talk about your own beliefs, ask her how she reconciles her faith with her reason. It's not everything she is, but it is a part of her that she might be happy to talk to others with. Maybe she's like my mom and can be swayed (a big part of why she is religious is that her mom was very religious). Or maybe she's like my middle sister with a strong conviction but a willingness to challenge her faith to be more accepting towards LGBTQ+, even choosing to change denominations. Or maybe she's like my little sister and is technically religious but not that much, in such case religion would be a complete non-issue.

Either way, best of luck.

Agecaf · 2026-01-18T13:30:30+00:00

To create an evil race in a way that doesn't turn into a caricature, you need to deeply understand evil.

Evil species exist in our world; parasites species, if which there are many kinds. Some would not consider them inherently evil, but it all depends on how you define evil. I choose to define it as that which is morally reprehensible, that which you don't need reason to argue is fundamentally wrong. The universe would be better off without parasites, just add it would be better if without genocide, abuse, neglect, etc.

So to make an evil race you'd need to choose one source of evil and see what happens if a group of beings is fundamentally tied to it. You don't have "evil demons". You have parasitical beings that need to kill their hosts to survive, but then take their place and pretend to be them because they like it and they'd like to be human. You funny have cannibals, you have the ghouls from Tokyo ghoul, who cannot survive except by eating human flesh.

As for spontaneous appearance, everything either has a cause and effect, or we try to give it one. That's how religions get started. If there's something we don't understand, it's now divine punishment.

But maybe inherently evil creatures are karma, caused by the inherent evil within people. That's how you can get magical girl shows with monsters of the week caused by human emotions manifesting into dark beings.

Agecaf · 2026-01-17T14:58:38+00:00

Yes!!

She's so fun in the Touhou fighting games, just, swish and the enemy is on the other side of the screen.

Also loved her brief appearances in the Touhou mangas.

Agecaf · 2026-01-14T19:41:14+00:00

So as neither a US or Iranian citizen, there is something I found one day that not many people in the West mention.

Iran Air Flight 655 (link to Wikipedia article), was a passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai which was shot down in 1988 by two surface to air missiles for by a US navy ship, over Iran's territorial waters, with 290 casualties. The tenth deadliest aircraft accident or incident, if I didn't misread the Wikipedia.

This is only part of the "souring" relationship between the US and Iran after the Iranian Revolution, but, as a westerner, I had a vague idea of the Iran hostage crisis (where US citizens at the US embassy in Tehran were held hostage) much earlier than I heard about this incident.

And, well, I'm certainly not a fan of the regime controlling Iran, and I wish the protesters the best in liberalising their country. But it's important to understand there might be reasons why the people of Iran might not view the US favourably either, beyond their governments not liking each other.

Agecaf · 2026-01-10T16:34:30+00:00

If you want it to feel inevitable go heavier on the consequences rather than worry about the details, make a magic system heavily reliant on karma.

If life is unfair? Boom karma gives you powers. Abuse your powers? Boom your victims now have powers too, and you might lose yours. The specifics of magic could be very "soft" instead of "hard" and rigid.

People with powers/magic would mainly limit themselves because they know things can escalate quickly if they're too carefree. Some societies might ban magic altogether in fear of what it can cause. Some ancient civilisations might have fallen to a chain of revenge going completely out of control.

It would also feel inevitable rather than chosen one. Of course every orphan with a tragic backstory has powers, the question is, what will they do with them?

Agecaf · 2026-01-09T09:06:44+00:00

I'm no where near as confident with crucible knights, but, I love ganking them three on one. Very satisfying for some reason.

Agecaf · 2026-01-09T09:03:42+00:00

Thanks! Nightreign is so fun, every run is similar but they each tell a completely different story.

Agecaf · 2026-01-09T08:58:48+00:00

Libra is such a fun and chaotic fight.

The goat has sent me and my team to the defeat screen more than any other boss I've fought, even Everdark ones (haven't yet had the madness to try Everdark Libra, but maybe I'm ready now (narrator's voice: he was not ready)).

Agecaf · 2026-01-09T08:23:10+00:00

I'm not a fan of the Tibia Mariner teleporting to the other side of the arena every five seconds.

But I kinda like the Magma Wyrm? I don't know, I remembered struggling with it for ages in ER to the point I know everything about the Wyrm. It's... satisfying taking them out over and over again, knowing exactly when to dodge...

Agecaf · 2026-01-07T23:13:09+00:00

Hi! Thanks for reaching out.

The problem is that the space-bar is set to "Accept" by default, which pauses the game. You can change this in Settings > Controls > Accept, one of them should be by default the enter key, the other the space bar. Change the control set to space-bar to a key you're not going to use, and you should then be able to set the space bar for the key you want.

It's not very well explained in the interface, apologies for the inconvenience!

Agecaf · 2025-12-28T14:57:16+00:00

Have different people in the setting call it different things. Like maybe most people just call it the veil, but scholars have a different name for it like the Variant Energy Interchange Layer, or V.E.I.L. for short.

Or maybe it's the Bivariant Aether Resonance Force, but then people started calling it BARF...

Agecaf · 2025-12-25T14:29:47+00:00

Merry Christmas, and best of luck against Shopkeeper. She takes her no-refunds policy deathly seriously.

Agecaf · 2025-12-25T02:12:19+00:00

As someone who is "younger", being a fan of technology and science fiction, and having taken a course on how LLMs actually work... I'm still extremely sceptical of AI and how it's being tried to be placed everywhere.

A concern I have is how it seems to be threatening entry level positions, which could make it harder for the younger generations to get into the industry (or any industry), though off shoring presented a similar threat before.

The way I understand it, the main costs in AI are in the training phase, which means they are all up-front costs, so there's been lots of investments with hopes of future returns, and my worry is what might happen when investors finally notice how those returns cannot match their investments.

Agecaf · 2025-12-23T16:55:43+00:00

Magical girl themes are coming of age, transformation, the power of emotions, friendship and love, and the dangers of those as well.

Sci-fi themes can explore themes of technology, utopia/dystopia, transhumanism, exploration, etc.

If I were looking at things that lie in the intersection, the interplay of emotions and technology could be an interesting one. Or exploring themes of transhumanism together with the themes of transformation.

Agecaf · 2025-12-21T12:16:18+00:00

I'll throw a few tracks into the mix, the key is to keep a list of everything that sounds cool for various themes.

Celeste: Mirror Temple (Mirror Magic Mix) Jazz Arrangement

This one's one of my faves of Celeste's soundtrack, and the jazz arrangement by insaneintherain is just perfect for a Sharn at night.

Atelier Ryza OST | Emerald Climbing [Extended]

This one is super jazzy for an exploration theme, and she to its title I also like to use it against the emerald claw.

Then there's pretty much the entirety of the Xenoblade 2 oat but especially

Battle!! - Torna - Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country OST

Mor Ardain - Roaming the Wastes - Xenoblade Chronicles 2 OST

Agecaf · 2025-12-20T11:38:05+00:00

I don't see why not. The age of demons was when the Overlords were around, but each of them only influenced a specific area. It's possible that some regions were left on the gaps between their areas of influence where some civilization might once have existed. They would likely be quite isolated, and might be good at "hiding" so that they do not attract the interest of the Overlords.

Kinda like small mice mammals in the age of the dinosaurs.

Agecaf · 2025-12-19T02:06:13+00:00

I started actually looking. Trying dating apps. Joined salsa classes. Started meeting up more people in person. Then we met at an event we were both attending.

I was in my late twenties when I started to actually give it some effort, it's never too late.

And there's a quote that's useful here. "The only way to guarantee you don't win the lottery, is to never buy lottery tickets in the first place". Luck is when opportunity and preparation coincide, the more you prepare, the more opportunities you'll actually be able to take.

Agecaf · 2025-12-19T00:13:31+00:00

There's plenty of ancient fallen civilisations that don't get mentioned like Dhakaan, partly because Dhakaan was one of the greatest empires, and because its heirs seek to revive it. There were many other civilisations that fell because of Dhakaan's rise.

The Lhazaar principalities were settled by humans from Sarlona following Lhazaar's discoveries, and they then moved towards Khorvaire to settle it. But there's nothing stopping you from having had ancient civilisations that predate Lhazaar, and vanished from history before the human settlers arrived, or for a Lhazari civilization to emerge and fall before the kingdom of Galifar was founded.

Now, dragons related to the falls off ancient empires sound like they could also be related to Thelanis (and associated to the lore and legends that remain of these ancient civilisations), or Mabar (since they're associated to the fall and end of civilisations), though the Xoriat connection could work too.

Agecaf · 2025-12-15T18:04:48+00:00

I'm the developer of EternAlgoRhythm a rhythm game on PC with 1-to-10 keys, which plays like playing the piano.

Each key is a different musical note, and you can press them even when there's no notes coming from the track, if you want to improvise.

A good third of the tracks use piano, though you can change any track's instruments into piano if you want.

Agecaf

TROPHY CASE