Wjec s2 22/06/2012

I thought this was a nice paper
Couldn't show that X=4cos@ to save my life though!

Split it into 2 right angled triangles, or perhaps easier, use the cosine rule.

I think the last question was trickier than last years because it gave you no help at all. It was just a paragraph, and they wanted the students to determine the distribution, set the hypotheses, state the range, figure out the continuity corrections, etc.

I agree it was a nice paper though, any idea for grade boundaries?

I'd guess 42 - 50 - 58 - 66 - 74 for C - B - A - A* - 100. Which is a bit higher than last years (because last year had that uniform question which everyone couldn't do apparently). Those boundaries are roughly the same as 2010, which I think would be a good approximation as it was of a similar difficulty.

My answers were, in order:

2b) was worth a lot of marks now that I look back

Oh **** I've messed up the confidence interval, your answer is correct. I think I forgot the coefficient 1.645 in my answer. I just did +/- 0.1/ sqrt(75) without multiplying first ah, that's at least 3 marks... For question 6 your answer is 1- 0.460, so maybe you took the length from pi/2 instead of 0? Seems quite minor IMO

Step I was ok. I attempted 11 questions iirc. I finished 10 and I was satisfied with my reasoning for ~4 of them. STEP is quite natural for me; it's a lot easier than Olympiads and it always guides you through the questions. I'm applying for physics next year probably.

Ah, yeah they messed up bmo1 this year... the first 4 questions were too easy (for the calibre of the students sitting it) which meant the boundaries shot up. And that meant I missed out on a gold in 2011 despite getting it in 2010... 20 is still a very good score considering the modal score is 0 and the mean score is around 12

No it doesn't come naturally... I do a lot of work and I read up a lot on number theory and geometry when I have free time. I also enjoy solving problems, the harder the better. Inevitably that overlaps a lot with the Olympiads. I'm trying to do more Olympiad prep in the hope I can make it further this year (as it will be my last year). But compared to the ruthless, open-ended and tricky style of olympiads, STEP comes much easier. I did all the STEP I papers before the exam though, so I guess that's quite a bit of preparation But I probably got into the swing of things faster because of my experience with longer-style questions. STEP is sometimes quite algebra-intensive, but it manages to stay quite cool/ interesting so I do enjoy it. I must say I find STEP III noticeably harder though (probably because it's based on more advanced maths). The best part of STEP is the really cool applied questions (especially in mechanics).

Bah, this S2 exam was another example of why I wish they'd make A level maths harder. It's so easy for candidates to just memorise the techniques and the steps to take in each situation and it just means the grade boundaries go way too high. Good luck with any remaining exams you have (I'm guessing Fp2/ fp3). I'm free now