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!!!!!!

yasmin I put a bunch of links for maths revision on this thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/2822454-Study-tips-and-websites-for-those-with-children-in-Y11

Hi guys

Found a fantastic maths revision guide/exam practice book today for Aqa gcse and Ed Excel Gcse maths.

I thoroughly recommend them. They are published by Scholastic . Amazon had reviews for Fiundation Book. I bought the Higher one, and first book my son likes

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?k=ed+excel+naths+scholastic&tag=mumsnetforum-21

Thanks noble I will tell him his teacher's doing him a favour in the long run!

Hi noble

Need your maths help on a dual Pythagoras/algebra question. See attached picture. I have squared base squared and height squared to equal hyp squared. But still tying myself in knots. Can you help please

Here are my workings. Does it end in a quadratic equation?

Yep, you're right so far. You need to solve the quadratic (it factorises, but the formula would do), which gives two solutions for x. However when you sub one solution into the sides of the triangle it gives an impossible side so the correct solution is the other value.

Hi Noble

How does it factorise. Sorry, I feel very thick.

You've got 6x^2 - 26x + 8 = 0 which isn't great so I divided both sides by 2 to give
3x^2 - 13x + 4 = 0
Which factorises to (3x-1)(x-4) = 0

Thank so Noble. You one bracket =0, so x+ 1/3 or 4. Abscis 4.

Phew. The key issue was dividing by 2, which you suggested.

Thank you.

I'm rubbish at factorising by inspection where the coefficient of a^2 isn't 1, so I always use the method where you split the middle term. A bit of a faff but it always works and you don't need to think about it:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=7uUcVk-iFlM

Just one final thing to Noble and others. That question is from the book I showed a picture up, see a few posts up the page.

It is produced by Scholastic. There should be model answers on the website, but have not appeared yet. They do F and H books for Aqa and EdExcel.

I think they are great!

Thanks everyone, this is a all really helpful.

In my search for revision tips I came across this site: learnthrumusic.co.uk. It seem like they've turned GCSE subjects into songs.

Jonathan been really getting into it, I'll keep an eye on it.

Thanks, noblegiraffe I've had a look back.

All really helpful, thank you.

Sorry to interrupt. Do you know what grade they need to be in a generally good place for the future? I'm a bit confused about what a B is in terms of the new grades and can it be obtained in the core paper or just the higher one? Thanks.

Prompted by DH who went on to do engineering but originally failed his O level maths - only give the lower paper- and had to resit etc in 'the old days'

Sorry had a look back and it seems a good pass is a 4/5?

A Grade 5 is apparently going to be the equivalent of a high C/low B & a Grade 6 the equivalent of a high B.

At an open evening we went to this week the maths teacher at dd's school was asking a potential A Level maths applicant if she was an old grade A type student. He would be looking at Grade 7 for potential A level students.

yy that's what we've been told - 4 - low C, 5 - high C/low B, 6 - B, 7 - A, 8 - A* & 9 top 2-3%.

School have no idea where grade boundaries are going to be though.

I've not seen that technique before Noble. Interesting. I'll have to deconstruct a few and see what I think of it.

Foundation Tier you can get Grades 1-5
Higher Tier is Grades 4-7 (according to AQA website.

No one knows the grade boundries yet only on the day of the gcse results come out. A good pass is a grade 5 what most 6 form want but if most of the students don't meet the 5 the grade boundries will drop otherwise the collages will have no one in the a level classes if the exam boards don't change the boundries.

Yes it can all be confusing.

Maths levels do to A levels at dd's 6th form this year are a 5 for biology, 6 for chemistry & physics, 7 to do maths & 8 for further maths. They are accepting a 4 as a A*-C pass to do humanities or art A levels (but obviously want a higher level in English for those subjects).

But they have also said that there will be a maths test for anyone doing those A levels a couple of weeks into term. How they do in that test determines whether they will be advised to switch A levels (regardless of their GCSE grade). I think that is mainly because they aren't offering any AS levels so pretty much everyone is starting with 3 subjects & an EPQ so there's no scope to drop a subject later in the year if it is too hard.

i think the sixth form here just ask for a B or equivalent in the subject referred to, it didn't say much about maths except for maths related subjects like maths, or competing I think. Does that sound right? Maybe I need to check.

You can get a 5 in the core paper, right?

Been trying to help my daughter with her maths today. It is sooo hard. The way they ask the questions has changed. She was an 8 but will be happy with a 7.