Any maths teachers around - high ability ds in revision nightmare!

[pinotnow]

DS is pretty able all round but maths has never been his forte compared to humanities and English, which come naturally to him. However, since Y10 he really seemed to improve in maths and his teacher has consistently said he is in the top 10 of a highly able top set of 30. He got a grade 8 in the Y10 summer mock and a grade 9 in the mock he's just done. All good.

However, every now and then he will come across a question (or 3, as in this time) that he can't do and then all hell will be let loose. He has the answers but he cannot work out how to arrive at them. He then goes into an almighty rant and has on this occasion scrunched up the paper. He just gets so frustrated. According to him there are no resources online that help as they either just give the answer, which he already has, or he says he can't understand them.

He is saying that to get a 9 you have to teach yourself? No idea whether that is true but I assume you have to apply knowledge/skills and the questions differ from each other. I didn't even manage to get a C in maths years ago but I recall being massively frustrated when questions would differ from the ones the teacher had gone through and I wouldn't have a clue. He is reminding of that but magnified. Obviously to get the top grades you have to be able to apply what you have learnt independently. I have told him a 9 is far from essential and he just needs to do his best but he's putting so much pressure on himself having just got all 9s in the mocks, though I'm not sure what grade boundaries were used.

Any advice for resources to help with these challenging questions and/or dealing with the wider issue of the way he is dealing (not) with this would be amazing.

Perhaps get a tutor? It isn’t true that you have to teach yourself to get a 9. You can always get a bit of tutoring to show you how problems are worked out.

You don't have to teach yourself to get a 9, but the last few questions will test pupils' ability to identify and apply techniques.

I would start with Dr Frost Math's 'Full Coverage' questions (www.drfrostmaths.com/worksheets.php?wdid=27). These take a topic, such as Pythagoras' Theorem, and show you all/most of the different ways a question can be asked. A useful revision strategy would be to choose a topic and do the questions under exam conditions (showing full, clear written working as you would in an exam), then inputting the answers to check. The topic link would give your son a handrail/starting point for each question, and this would provide useful additional practice as well as giving your son insight into what technique is required for a particular type of question.

As he works his way through these, the 'last questions' he is doing on past papers should get easier, as the formats become more familiar.

Another aspect he might find difficult is combining different techniques to answer a question. Nathan Day has written some very good questions to help students with this (with answers): interwovenmaths.com/interwoven-revision-questions