M1 Jan 2012 Edexcel Post-Exam discussion - Solutions and Paper in first post

For 3c) if you got 76 and showed how you got it, you'd probably have only lost 1 mark for then not taking it away from 180

I also think that the moments question was the hardest it's been in quite a while. Are the question marks implying low mark allocation? I did think as I was doing the paper "they're not giving very many marks for this".

Since there were a few odd questions such as 3 and 7, that quite a few people must have got confused over and thus made mistakes and in general it sounds like people have made a fair few mistakes in this paper in general.

I think the grade boundaries will be about the same as they were for June 2011 ( 60 for an A). In my opinion the paper was probably on par with the June 2011 in terms of difficulty, since the final two questions on June 2011 were difficult but the questions before that were relatively easy, this paper was similar since the were a couple of difficult questions such as the moments one and the ones I've mentioned and certainly the final two questions it seems that a few mistakes we made, which will cause the grade boundaries to be lower.

There was a past paper which featured an identical question. We had a big debate about it in class and we decided that it's like in C4 vectors; the vectors are always travelling away from the angle that you find. Since j is travelling north and R is travelling south-east, you should take the larger angle. It is quite odd that it's a 3 mark question though so you may be right.

I also think that the moments question was the hardest it's been in quite a while. Are the question marks implying low mark allocation? I did think as I was doing the paper "they're not giving very many marks for this".

There was a past paper which featured an identical question. We had a big debate about it in class and we decided that it's like in C4 vectors; the vectors are always travelling away from the angle that you find. Since j is travelling north and R is travelling south-east, you should take the larger angle. It is quite odd that it's a 3 mark question though so you may be right.

I also think that the moments question was the hardest it's been in quite a while. Are the question marks implying low mark allocation? I did think as I was doing the paper "they're not giving very many marks for this".

You seem to have the same opinion as me. Easy for many on here, but you can see where lots of other people would of been fooled too. Also question 5 with the time interval of the ball would of tricked alot of people I think. I don't think they'll be astronomically high if they raise tbh, I hope that they aren't anyway

That vector question was really easy if you drew it. All you had to do is get Tan the angle, then add 90, you will get 104.

I was a bit unsure how to tackle that question. I treated is at two separate equations. Wasn't sure whether you could do it as one, turns out you can.

I worked out the speed at which it approached the height in the question, and the used another equation, treating displacement as 0, u as what I found out before, t = t, a = - 9.8.

It worked out to be the same, so Im pretty happy

I set the displacement as the distance they gave you(6.6metres I think) and then used a quadratic. Minused the smaller number from the bigger number to get 2.7ish. If i figured out the acceleration wrong on 8c and impulse(fml) wrong on 1a but showed all workings how many do you think i will get? Probs 0 for impulse but maybe 1 for 8c?

I still think in 8c you will get like 2 or 3 out of 5, as long as you carried the method through.

Good luck

How many marks do you reckon you got?

I made the same mistake as you. You have to remember that vector are from a particular reference point thus the j axis is is ONLY one place meaning that the angle that the vector makes with a vertical is 76 degrees but the angle it makes with j is 104 degrees (which happens to be the same as giving the bearing of the vector from O)

You seem to have the same opinion as me. Easy for many on here, but you can see where lots of other people would of been fooled too. Also question 5 with the time interval of the ball would of tricked alot of people I think. I don't think they'll be astronomically high if they raise tbh, I hope that they aren't anyway

Yeah, many at my school who retook this paper were confused by the questions mentioned, and when the questions are slightly obscure and test knowledge of the subject in a way which is not illustrated in previous exam papers (non-uniform rod never ever comes up) people are inevitably going to fall into the traps laid out. I'm failry convinced that the grade boundaries will not be as high as the 64 suggested by arsey or the 65-67 range suggested by other contributors.

I've said it so many times, the student room is mainly the high A/A* students' opinions on the exams. I don't think they'll be stupidly high because I had to think proper hard (underline,circle information etc) to avoid falling into traps - and I still have leaked 10 marks due to falling into traps tbh. I thought the moments question was very difficult despite getting all marks for it. Hopefully 65/75(then a couple of working marks hopefully) will see me into the 80's.