Edexcel maths A level today

[Maray1967]

Anyone else’s 18 year old had a bad time with Edexcel Maths today?

Mine says it was horrifically hard. I’ve said all the usual stuff about trying not to dwell on it and focusing on the next exam, but it might be helpful if he’s not alone!! He didn’t hang around long after school but says it looked like everyone thought it was hard.

A lot of emphasis on past papers on here. It is a method that I have always used for my own exam revision. Not Maths. In other subjects, trends of questions seem to crop up, questions needing the same information in different formats keep cropping up.

It's a bit late in the day for this, but, have students been attempting predicted questions? There's plenty of websites available.

Can you recommend any good ones?

The 2 that popped up for me were Primrose Kitten and Maths Genie. Maths Genie is also on YouTube. TES also has predicted papers available. There are other sites available.

Another recommendation is to do papers from a different exam board. I have used this method when I was teaching. It worked for my students. I was able to apply my usual mark scheme.

I must stress that I am not a Maths teacher. I can't recommend the predicted papers because I have never used them. It's worth a try for any students who are totally burnt out by studying umpteen Edexcel past papers.

I showed the 'difficult' question to someone I know who's good at Maths. They said oh yes, it's blah blah, you need to do apply such and such. According to them, if you knew how to approach the question, it wasn't difficult.

Finally, all exam papers are overseen by Ofqual. They all have to cater for different abilities and stretch the stronger students. All Maths A level papers should be of the same standard of difficulty, regardless of the exam board.

I must stress that I am not a Maths teacher. I can't recommend the predicted papers because I have never used them

Predicted papers for maths have an EXTREMELY short shelf life. They are written after the first pure paper has been sat, and don't contain topics that were covered on paper 1, so that students can focus their pure revision on topics that are more likely to come up on paper 2.

They are written extremely quickly (they try to get them out the day after the first paper) and generally without particular regard for length, timing or difficulty.

I wouldn't use them for anything but that purpose.

I downloaded and did said paper this week.

Personally. I didn't think it was too bad. DD thought it was okay when she sat it last week and is surprised it's made it in the news.

I've not taught A level for some time, but have been teaching GCSE for many years now.

We are currently with Eduqas at the moment, and there is very little in the way of revision resources catered especially for Eduqas compared to Edexcel, AQA etc.

Maths is maths, you may think but they have very unusual style of exams questions, which seems to have a high concentration on reasoning and problem solving types. They look very different year to year, unlike Edexcel where you can predict what the questions are and learn the "recipe" for the marks, sometimes without understanding the topic fully.

I think getting your students to do papers from other boards, which I have done this year, as extra revision is a good way of getting them to slow down a bit, instead of just completing questions unthinkingly.

Interesting comment about problem solving type questions.

At my son's school they have at least one weekly lesson on maths problem solving techniques. Their ethos is different and they teach A level maths in a more holistic way. There's more emphasis on mastering the subject and less on working on past papers purely to be able to pass exams.

How did the young people find this afternoon’s paper? DC just text to say it was much better than the first one!

Waiting to hear from dd...

My son said much easier than paper 1. Only one question he wasn't sure about.

DS2 said it was 'about the same' as the other paper.

For reference though, his response for nearly all his exams has been 'not bad.' The exception was a Chem paper that was 'really easy'.

He takes a lot in his stride and, to be fair to him, has been revising since January, so felt prepared for everything.

Mine finished it (unusual as often there’s not time), said it was ok-easier than the last one. Answered them all but unsure if they were all right!

My DS seemed confident after paper 3. He said some of his friends found it hard.

He did struggle with paper 1 though.