Could anyone help with this Maths GCSE question please??

[E1nste1n]

Thankyou - exam tomorrow!

What country of origin if I may ask?

Some countries obviously reach higher standards.
Presumably by one or more of:

• putting proportionately more curriculum time in
• repeating school years
• much more homework
• culture of tutoring outside school
• better/different teaching methods(more funding? smaller classes?)

I suspect what you gain in maths you might lose elsewhere, and it depends what you value. Remember those that want to, go on to do A level maths at 18.

Exactly silver, where I'm from NASA consults the primary school kids about spaceship engineering

Silver, it's not an advanced secondary exam.

it's from GCSE - in principle a universal exam taken by all 15-16 year olds of all abilities, though for Maths there are two tiers of entry. this would be in the higher tier paper. So a paper aimed at the top 50% or so of the cohort.

Tbf, differentiation isn't hard per se, but it's not in most GCSE curricula - I note this is the international GCSE paper - so it seems hard because it's unfamiliar.

The more important question is this . .

When, and under what circumstances, would anybody need to know this in real life?

Why are we teaching our kids this rubbish?

Calculus (differentiation) was an A level standard question in my day. It never appeared on GCSE papers.

Differentiation is back in after the GCSE reforms.

Agree it isn't hard per se but it is a bit esoteric for your average 15/16yo.

I would say that it is more straightforward than many of the hardest questions on recent GCSE (not iGCSE) papers because it essentially requires a single skill and the area of maths it refers to is obvious. I would say the same is true of DD's (legacy - ie not yet 9-1) Further Maths papers.

What makes the hardest questions on recent GCSE papers tricky, IME as a parent, is the combining of multiple areas of Maths, often in a way designed to be tricky / not obvious, in a single question.

Teen, differentiation is not in DD's curriculum, but it is in her Further Maths curriculum. As, bizarrely, are matrices....

@TeenTimesTwo
One of the ex communist block countries. No, you are absolutely right, it comes at the expense of other subjects in the curriculum, and apart from maths (and some sciences) there are no other areas worth mentioning. I guess I just expected something more challenging, with all the hype around STEM education, Singapore maths etc.

Outoutout To be fair you can say that about a lot of education.
However if a young person isn't exposed to stuff they won't learn what they are interested in or capable at. So they won't know what to explore further.
Most pupils won't get taught differentiation at GCSE level as most won't get that far in the syllabus.

Outoutout that's a very obtuse question really.

Someone post some advanced Maths for our very own Einstein silvercuckoo who gets an A* in goadiness.

Silver, depth vs breadth is, of course, always a hot potato.

DD will do Maths, Further Maths, English Literature, English Language, 3 sciences, History, 2 foreign languages, Art and a Design technology subject at this level. So she retains a broad and balanced education up to the age of 16 - I agree at the expense of some depth.

She'll specialise from 16-18 in 4, then 3 subjects, perhaps closer to what you might have experienced. It's just a different route through the education maze.

(Though there are obvious 'glitches' in the progression in maths, in particular. The Y6 SATs, taken at 11, for example, are more comparable to the Foundation tier of the GCSE than they should be for exams taken 5 years apart)



From my son-I've not a clue

picture not showing?

I have never seen Calculus on an AQA or Edexcel GCSE.

Trying again ...

stopit I might well be wrong. I thought it was back in, but perhaps not. I've just checked DD's revision guide and can't see it.

pejorative I can't read all the numbers, but it looks like the right method.

I remember doing this kind of Q on Maths GCSE back in 1999. Boring and seemed to have no practical application, however a bit of an easy subject as we did no homework at all until the teacher was sacked half way through Year 11.

@TeenTimesTwo
He is doing A level maths so I'd hope so!!!

Teen, not in Edexcel 'normal' GCSE

here

I did it in A/O Maths back when such things existed - not in O-level though.

Outoutout, anyone with half a brain doing a STEM career should have done a decent amount of Calculus. They might not need it everyday but it's almost incomprehensible that they could never have studied it.