This year's GCSE maths.....

[BertrandRussell]

My ds's maths teacher has just told me that the 7000 odd schools that did the new maths GCSE as mocks recently achieved a modal score of 11% for paper 1. 11% ? Surely not!!!!!!

Being curious, I had a look at the 1968 paper 1, current students would find Q6, 8 & 10 difficult because they haven't studied much Euclidean Geometry so it is unfair to judge them on that. Q12 would be straight forward if they learnt some calculus. The rest of them were straight forward compares to the Edexcel Mock's standard.

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I'm not sure it's helpful comparing current examinations with papers from nearly 50 years ago! Surely it is all down to what and how the students have been taught? I'm sure if today's crop had been taught all of the 1968 curriculum from a single textbook, with the mindset, detentions etc from that period they would compare to that generation of students. It's the fact that learning styles nowadays are so different which makes it useless to compare. Also, this year's crop of Yr11's have been thrown in the deep end with the new GCSE's and I think that's unfair.

The important thing to remember is that only the most confident students took o levels, those in secondary moderns and comprehensives usually took cse's.

Actually you should all be proud of the children nowadays. There was no A* for O' levels and today's A or 7 is about the same as an A in O' level. As for the CSE's they are about equivalent to foundation and a 1 which was the top grade in them was equivalent to a C grade in O level. But, those below a grade 3 in CSE where deemed as failed I think, may be wrong though. So I meant my previous comment to be a compliment not a downer.

Hi noble, a quick query on probability, please.

Is a tree diagram the same thing as a stem and leaf diagram?

Thanks.

Portico, they are two different concepts. Try to google them online, you should be able to get an answer.

"Is anyone else's child really struggling with the new narrative form of many of the questions? DS2 is pretty good at English but put together Maths and English in the wordy maths problems and he is lost! Once he figures out what is being asked, he is not too bad but mostly he just doesn't know what he is supposed to be answering! Getting really worried ...."

This is certainly a big issue at ds's school, which has a lot of children who struggle with literacy. Ds said that in the first mocks, a lot of his class were so thrown by this that they gave up. They are running special after school groups to tackle the problem-is it worth talking to your maths department about it? Ds's teacher has told them to get highlighter pens to highlight the key bits of the question-might that help your ds?

DD taking gcse's this year - busy revising at the moment.
The only real problem is the maths - and I can't help at all!
I wish all the kids the very best of luck.

Noble, ignore my query, I noticed from the text books, there is a difference. I was mapping the work done, this year in Y9 son's school books.

Stem and leaf - frequency
Tree - probability

Different topics

BertrandRussell, not sure which board your DS is doing for Maths, but if Ed Excel, I saw the all in one Collins Revision kit yesterday. They also had for OCR and AQA. They looked great, at £10.99. Not sure if it helps you.

Thank you Ollycat - wish you were around 35 years ago when I did my O Level.....lol

CGP revision guide may not have Stem and Leaf diagrams in - early copies certainly didn't! They didn't realise that Edexcel include them in their syllabus unlike other exam boards. Also check for Peterson Capture-Recapture method as that was something else left out in error.

Noble, Ollycat - stuck on marking this question for son, can you please help on part (b) only

The ratio of the areas of two geometrically similar buckets is 8:50.
The area of the top of the smaller bucket is 240cm2

Ignore the fact that the area of the base of the larger bucket is more than that of the smaller bucket, and it is unimportant in this question.

a)What is the area of the top of the larger bucket?

I can do this:

25/4 X 240 = 1500cm2

b) What is the ratio of the smaller bucket to the larger bucket?

Can't work out why the answer is 2:5

I thought it would be 8:50, broken down as 4:25

Because the ratio of the bucket is 25/4 the ratio of the areas is square root of 25/4

The area ratio is the length ratio squared, so if they're asking for the length ratio you have to square root the area ratio.

Think about it in terms of two squares, one with sides 2cm (so area 4cm2) and the other with sides 5cm (so area 25cm)

The ratio of the sides will be 2:5 but the ratio of the areas will be 4:25

Thanks Pestilentialone. But why square root 4:25 to make 2:5.

That part I don't understand.

Oh, I see now. Thanks guys. Think I need to do the GCSE too..........over a 5 year period..lol

You need to know about volumes too.
If the ratio of the sides of two similar objects is a:b
Then the ratio of the areas will be a2 : b2
And the ratio of the volumes will be a3 : b3

Cool thanks for that Noble. Also thank you to OllyCat and Pestilentialone for helping me on the other questions. Today was the only time I will seek question help on here. Thanks.

The ratio of the areas of two geometrically similar buckets is 8:50

Sorry if I am being stupid here, but isn't the question the problem. Area is a 2 dimensional measurement but a bucket is a 3 dimensional object. Stupid question. Yes you can guess what the question means but its a guess, shouldn't the question be specific and closed to ambiguity?

Reading some of this thread I am a bit that so many people are worried that Maths questions are 'wordy', ummm isn't that just like real life? If children really cant cope with a few words shouldn't they read more. What are parents and schools teaching their children these days?

If children really cant cope with a few words shouldn't they read more

Have you ever worked with students with SEND - I will pass on your suggestion

Portico- I have a year 9 child also in a selective school - seriously don't stress about the maths - they won't have covered much of the GCSE curriculum yet - at this stage concentrate on them doing their homework and maybe recapping what they've done in class but I wouldn't introduce new topics, leave that for school - enjoy the holidays!

Hi Ollycat

It was part of his school maths homework questions he had for the Easter holidays.

He pure pressure on himself. I just try to keep up with him.