OCR C2 Exam May 18th 2012

Browsing the Exams forum I couldn't find a C2 thread for tomorrow...is nobody taking this exam or what??

Wondering if anyone can explain question 9 on the Jun 2011 paper, completely tripped me up.

konshi have you got the Jan 2012 paper?

I was wondering where this thread was, along with the D1 one also

Im doing this tommorrow, just did the Jan 2010 paper alone and got 70/72, lost 2 marks because I forgot that for 0.5absinC the angle had to be in radians :P

Ive done 4 papers the past 2 days, got 70 (above), 65, 68 and 69, all for different reasons so I am feeling fairly confident. Logarithms are the most challenging aspect definately, but I can do them resonably I think, but I prefer when they are used in a context (e.g. geometric progression, or to do with exponential curves) instead of just being given log something and solve it.

Im trying to do a question spotting exercise about what may come up as larger end questions, but without the Jan 2012 paper I cannot really do that well. Annoying as I predicted stuff in class right about FP1 in January apart from one or two small things

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/5623/dsc1788a.jpg
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/1181/dsc1790a.jpg
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/765/dsc1791jzk.jpg

I actually sat the Jan 12 paper, got 70 UMS, still can't believe that I got the binomial wrong of all questions...Wanting 80 UMS this time around



Yeah, I find logs and the sin/cos graphs to be the hardest...S1 next thursday though, and that is definitely harder than c2!

Thanks so much! do you have the mark scheme?

That Jan 2012 paper looks hard, the integration, logs and sin/cos/tan graph questions at the end look horrid, I wonder what the grade boundaries are, this MIGHT indicate that they will make the paper tommorrow a bit easier, but that may not be the case.

The end question may be a difficult geometric/logarithm hybrid, or maybe another log question, they havent asked about exponential graphs in a couple papers and it wasnt that bad. (May 2011)

I'll be suprised though if the end question will be a trignometric graph based question though.

I just hope the paper is easy enough to do well in, but not with some high grade boundaries, really want 90+ UMS on this

Grade boundary was 60/72 for an A, which I thought was quite high since the consensus seemed to be that it was a hard paper. Who knows. I imagine the majority of Y12s will be doing the Jun paper, so not sure what effect that'll have on the boundaries.

60/72 is the standard normally, althought 80% of 72 is approximately 58. I havent tried the paper myself but it looks challenging so I am suprised also, maybe if that was the Jun paper the examiners may have lowered it more (as more people could do badly).

The lowest i've seen for an A was 54/72 on a maths paper and the higher ive seen is a 63/72. It can range a whole lot.

EDIT: for i) the period is how long the line is drawn for e.g. it may be covering 90 degrees or 120 degrees etc. (but its in radian), ii) is simple, its the minimum point of a cos graph in radians again. The inequallity one is strange, as your actual answer will be between the 2 values of x you find, the last question is fairly standard though.

EDIT 2: explained i) badly, I mean as in over what period of degrees does the cos graph change before duplicating itself

I've been going over and I almost understand it now. This might seem dumb, but I don't actually understand the relationship between trig graphs in degrees and trig graphs in radian. I got the right answers by using a degrees graph then converting to radian, but lost the mark for giving the exact answer in radians. Is Pi along the x axis = to 360 or something, and then Pi/2 = 180?

Pi = 180, 2 Pi = 360, Pi/2 = 90

I learned this when I did FP1 in January, so I am not sure how much I would have gotten it either if I learned it in C2 classes. I always remember it from a youtube video about how Pi is wrong, because a real Pie is a circle (i.e. 360 degrees) yet that is 2 pi, when it should be 1 pi :P

Ah OK. Sorry to bother you, but could you run me through 9b?

I've used the identities to get that sin2x = +/- 1/2. Then do I draw the graph for sin2x, and line up with 30, 60, 120, and 150 degrees?

I'm looking at the mark scheme, which says that 2x = Pi/6, which is 30 degrees. But then its also 5Pi/6, 7Pi/6, 11Pi/6. Are these 60, 120 and 150 respectively, or have I got this completely wrong? :P

Tbh, I've raped logs over the last few days and I actually understand them now I'm really hoping the last question is one on logs! I also hate trig, especially the inequalities of the Jan 12 paper, I was like WTF? I can cope if the question isn't a lot of marks ha, so I'm hoping its not the last question.

I think a dream last question would be division of a polynomial/factor remainder theorem question. Doubt that will happen though

And I keep making ridiculous mistakes with series and sequences questions

I really want at least 93 UMS in this!

No, 5pi /6 = 160, 7pi/6 = 210, 11pi/6 = 330.

I dont know where you got the 7pi and the 11pi from, arent you using a tan graph???



In Jan 2011 the last question was factor/remainder theorum (with intergrating curves) so it could indeed come up