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!!!!!!

Hi Noble

Can you advise on a quick method to solve this maths question, please. I attach the question and agreed answer here. I also attach my son's workings. For Stage 1 he found x=1. For Stage 2 he found that y=-6

I need feedback please as I am sure there is a quicker way to get the 2 marks for this question. I am confused as to why there are permutations of (x,y) values. Is it a y=mx+c question.

I think..
Two numbers multiplied together give -10 as your working shows.

There are an inifinite number of possible pairs, just pick one.

like -1 & 10, which would give (x, y) = (-1, 14) or (3,10)

He's way over-complicating it. 1 mark for recognising that you need 2 numbers that multiply to give -10. Pick one of those pairs. Then 1 mark for adding 4 to one of the numbers in the pair.

There are 4 pairs of numbers that multiply to -10, so there are 8 possible pairs of x and ys, because you can add 4 to either the first number in the pair and have that as your y, or the second number in the pair.

Thank you Noblegiraffe andTheFrendo.

All advice was much appreciated and used. Now we have to do nasty quadratic sequences, and transformation (rotational/enlargement).

Steggers123 as a teacher and exam marker I would find his work legible enough to mark.

The board I mark for gives us an option to not mark a question if it is not legible/missing parts due to being written in the margin and not picked up on scanning or on another page. This is referrred to another marker who will look at the online script or the actual script

I have seen a lot worse I promise you.

The reason they are referred is due to the time constraints - I have 3 weeks to mark 550 exams (approx 25 questions per script)- during term time so teaching as well!

Noble giraffe just wanted to ask do children go up a grade in their real gcse exams or down? Do teachers mark the mock exams harshly? I'm really worried because of all this new grade boundaries on maths and English

It depends on when the mocks were, kids normally stay the same or go up a grade from Christmas mocks. Sometimes they go down, but not often.

The problem with the new English and maths is that teachers have no idea of where the grade boundaries were for the mocks. They might have given a kid a 6 in December, but that 6 was just a stab in the dark and another school might have given the same kid a 5 or a 7, even for maths where the marking will have been pretty consistent between schools.

For English, where marking is more subjective, there's recent evidence that shows that high attaining schools mark lower attaining pupils more harshly and that lower attaining schools mark higher attaining pupils more harshly.

Thanks Noble for replying much appreciated

What's happened to the year 11 support thread I typed in a long message but doesn't let me post done it twice now... tut

Threads close at 1000 messages, there's a new thread here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/2936097-Yr-11-support-thread-the-scaffolding-is-holding-up-well?

Thanks Noblegiraffe

Maths exam approaching

Get your DC to read this document from Edexcel, some useful tips about how to approach the exam, what to bring in, what not to do. Did you know that if you cross out a correct answer but don't replace it with another incorrect answer, then the correct answer will get the marks even though it's crossed out? It's important not to scribble answers out but just put a line through them just in case! Also, bendy rulers aren't allowed.

2fv5d843v9w22sxtto1ibxtu.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GCSE-Maths-exam-advice-courtesy-of-Edexcel.pdf

Cheers Noblegiraffe that will be very helpful science core part b tomorrow and then Thursday maths non-calculator good luck for all the dc

How did your DC find the paper?

Dd thought last 5 questions were very hard. She did workings but knew she had gone wrong somewhere. Also some wording was initially unclear to her. Nobody she has spoken to says it was better than expected. One boy wrote down a question for the head of maths and he said it was more like an A Level question.

Was that Edexcel Scabetty? The last question was a stinker and aimed squarely at the Grade 9s.

Edexcell, yes it was

Oops extra l got in there

wow, the timeline for GCSE is upon us! what are everyone doing for last min GCSE boosts?

mathswebsite.com/
www.studypug.com/uk/uk-gcse-maths
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/maths/mocks/

we re just cycling through these sites. I think my maths is getting better by the day sitting by my dc! :)

My ds found the last few questions really hard he tried all of them he thinks he's defo got over 28 marks he really needs that grade 5 because he's on a 4 wish him good luck especially maths this year's the poor guinea pigs that are getting tested on really not fair

Hi Noblegiraffe

I hope all is well. Sorry, I have a favour to ask. Can you please have a look at Q3 in the attached. The answer is 31.25cm. Not sure my son's workings are correct, or whether he tried to contrive the solution from the answer.

That gives the right answer but the layout of the working doesn't fit with how I would have done it. I would have two possible methods.
Length scale factor = 5/4 so area scale factor = 25/16
Area of larger rectangle is 20 x (25/16)

Or from the ratio of areas 16 : 25 = 20 : ?
Which you would work out doing (20/16) x 25.

Obviously both these give the same answer as (20 x 25)/16 I just can't immediately think of a method which would multiply by 25 first then divide. Of course there might well be a sensible explanation so ask him why he did it that way!

Area of Bigger = (5/4) squared * Area of Smaller
A = (25 / 16) * 20 = 125 / 4 = 31.25

Have a look at these examples:

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/maths/geometry/congruencysimilarityrev4.shtml

Thank you Noble and Frendo

Sorted all hard topics out for Y9 and Y7. Y7 transformations rotations to do. Yuk!

Scabetty, my DD also said the same about the last five questions. What grade is your DD predicted? Mines a 7. Unfortunately, she's bottom of the top set with the 8 and 9 achievers, who apparently did the whole thing, so not helping her confidence.