[Oromis263]

(Original post by In One Ear)
Yeah i have no idea why the boundaries were so stupidly low for this paper. I felt jan 2012 was at least as hard if not slightly harder and that had much higher boundaries

I felt the same, but then I also felt that the January paper wasn't that bad either, but I think it's because I get along with most of the Core 4 topics, and I can visually grasp vectors quite well.

Perhaps it is related to the C4 paper being a resit paper/a paper sat by people accelerating their A2 maths in order to finish it before summer, leaving time for things like STEP. Perhaps :P

[Oromis263]

(Original post by nmudz_009)
you know on the jan 12 paper, for question 8b), in the mark scheme, where does the p, 5p , and 2p come from?

Without having the paper to hand, is it possibly the direction vector of the vector equation? They've just replaced lambda with p?

[greenfro]

(Original post by Oromis263)
Ok, this question had a wee trick, but after spotting that it wasn't that bad.

Spoiler:

Show

a) i)

Spoiler:

Show

a) ii) This is where you must take into account the obtuse part. I did arcsin0.5 = 30, then did 180-30=150 to find the angle. Then:

Spoiler:

Show

b) Using:



You sub your values in, and rearrange as required.

Thank you!!

[ADA93]

(Original post by Cath-ay)
Here's a pic showing you more detail than the ms. Hope it helps!

Thanks so much!

[In One Ear]

(Original post by Oromis263)
I felt the same, but then I also felt that the January paper wasn't that bad either, but I think it's because I get along with most of the Core 4 topics, and I can visually grasp vectors quite well.

Perhaps it is related to the C4 paper being a resit paper/a paper sat by people accelerating their A2 maths in order to finish it before summer, leaving time for things like STEP. Perhaps :P

Maybe, hopefully then june will be a hard paper with super low boundaries .

Yes i find c4 very easy, my current problem though is i only just started learning fp3 today and the exam is this thursday . Added to that i can only devote this evening and wednesday evening/part of the day to learning the module seeing as i have physics tomorrow, and then the long chem paper on wednesday (which im also unready for- so need to devote monday evening and tuesday evening to), so yeah, quite a lot to do.

How do you find fp3 compared to fp2 btw? Looking through it chapter 3 has some complex theory but the questions are very formulaic and can be easily pushed into just several categories each for which there are just a couple of methods to generate the solutions. Chapter 4 looks like a notation grind but other than that im hoping its like the arc length/curved surface area chapter of fp2 where i really only need the formulae (which thankfully are in the formulae booklet). Chapters 1 looks managable having already met series expansions, chapter 2 seems pretty standalone and self explanatory, but chapter 5 looks a bit monsterous and very long (having just glanced at it). I'm hoping its like chapter 3 (which ive just done in 1.5 hours) in that once you actually get to grips with it, its a lot less stuff to know than looks at first sight.

Anyway, better get on with it! Good 6 hours i can put in tonight, hopefully i can knock out c4,c5 and possibly one of c1 and c2 then do the final chapter and a past paper or two on Wednesday evening. Wish me luck!

[Oromis263]

(Original post by In One Ear)
Maybe, hopefully then june will be a hard paper with super low boundaries .

Yes i find c4 very easy, my current problem though is i only just started learning fp3 today and the exam is this thursday . Added to that i can only devote this evening and wednesday evening/part of the day to learning the module seeing as i have physics tomorrow, and then the long chem paper on wednesday (which im also unready for- so need to devote monday evening and tuesday evening to), so yeah, quite a lot to do.

How do you find fp3 compared to fp2 btw? Looking through it chapter 3 has some complex theory but the questions are very formulaic and can be easily pushed into just several categories each for which there are just a couple of methods to generate the solutions. Chapter 4 looks like a notation grind but other than that im hoping its like the arc length/curved surface area chapter of fp2 where i really only need the formulae (which thankfully are in the formulae booklet). Chapters 1 looks managable having already met series expansions, chapter 2 seems pretty standalone and self explanatory, but chapter 5 looks a bit monsterous and very long (having just glanced at it). I'm hoping its like chapter 3 (which ive just done in 1.5 hours) in that once you actually get to grips with it, its a lot less stuff to know than looks at first sight.

Anyway, better get on with it! Good 6 hours i can put in tonight, hopefully i can knock out c4,c5 and possibly one of c1 and c2 then do the final chapter and a past paper or two on Wednesday evening. Wish me luck!

Good luck! Sadly my college doesn't do the FP3 module, so I'll be most likely sitting it on my own next year if I gap year. Which exam board are you on for Chemistry? :P I've my final Chem exam on this Wednesday as well. ^_^

[In One Ear]

(Original post by Oromis263)
Good luck! Sadly my college doesn't do the FP3 module, so I'll be most likely sitting it on my own next year if I gap year. Which exam board are you on for Chemistry? :P I've my final Chem exam on this Wednesday as well. ^_^

OCR, and you?

[Oromis263]

(Original post by In One Ear)
OCR, and you?

OCR A. It appears we sit the exact same exam boards. :P (assuming you're OCR A)

[nmudz_009]

(Original post by Oromis263)
Without having the paper to hand, is it possibly the direction vector of the vector equation? They've just replaced lambda with p?

Sorry, I posted it here. please have a look :P question 8b)

[nmudz_009]

I'll be hoping the vector question on the exam'll be repeated from other papers, cos i reckon my best hope is to memorise all previous vector questions from past papers.

[nmudz_009]

(Original post by In One Ear)
x

Most people seem to think the other way round, cos in the jan one the difficulty was more spread out, while in june there were two quite difficult questions which a lot of people messed up.

[I failed badly]

I am just going to have to take my time on this paper and actually use the minute a mark thing that the teachers always tell me because when i try to go realy fast on this module i seem to make daft mistakes and then end up getting it wrong. I seem to write different things to what i actually want to write, on the june 10 paper i changed a 1 to a 3 for some reason an that messed up the rest of the question.

[In One Ear]

(Original post by nmudz_009)
Most people seem to think the other way round, cos in the jan one the difficulty was more spread out, while in june there were two quite difficult questions which a lot of people messed up.

Well i thought jan 2012 was consistently on the tougher side with its questions. Which questions in june 11 did people think where hard? The final question was just long, and actually a really easy source of marks. The question before it (about the snowman?) was also very straightforward. Even if people thought these were hard it doesn't really explain the incredibly low boundaries.

[LGrosvenor101]

(Original post by In One Ear)
OCR, and you?

(Original post by Oromis263)
OCR A. It appears we sit the exact same exam boards. :P (assuming you're OCR A)

Good luck for Wednesday on Chemistry! I'm on OCR A as well, but we did EEE in January, and RPA next week D: so glad I got the big one out the way It will be fine though, do not worry

[nmudz_009]

(Original post by In One Ear)
Well i thought jan 2012 was consistently on the tougher side with its questions. Which questions in june 11 did people think where hard? The final question was just long, and actually a really easy source of marks. The question before it (about the snowman?) was also very straightforward. Even if people thought these were hard it doesn't really explain the incredibly low boundaries.

It seems easier to us now, and not overly difficult but there were parts at the start of questions if you didn't get right. you'd lose all the marks for that question. So many people lost marks they wouldnt have lost normally, i mean under normal circumstances they'd definately have the maths ability to deal with them.

I'm secretly hoping (well not that secretly now) that thursdays exam'll be similar to june11 and so will have boundaries like that, so that I can leave out an entire question an still get very high UMS ~ 95+...lol 58/75 for an A* ...imagine

I wud rather the paper is found to be hard by most people than very easy so silly mistakes wont cost me as much UMS!

[nmudz_009]

(Original post by I failed badly)
I am just going to have to take my time on this paper and actually use the minute a mark thing that the teachers always tell me because when i try to go realy fast on this module i seem to make daft mistakes and then end up getting it wrong. I seem to write different things to what i actually want to write, on the june 10 paper i changed a 1 to a 3 for some reason an that messed up the rest of the question.

I use the one mark per minute thing but It never goes to plan. half an hour in I myt be half the way through the paper,, yet five mins to go it I'll still be on the last question..so I just try an do every question as slowly as possible so as to not make silly mistakes.

[rachaelizabeth]

I'm really dreading this exam.
I feel like I know the stuff really well, I know the content. But then it comes to past papers and I become a complete idiot and just don't know what they're asking me to do D:

Someone please help me :')

[In One Ear]

(Original post by nmudz_009)
It seems easier to us now, and not overly difficult but there were parts at the start of questions if you didn't get right. you'd lose all the marks for that question. So many people lost marks they wouldnt have lost normally, i mean under normal circumstances they'd definately have the maths ability to deal with them.

I'm secretly hoping (well not that secretly now) that thursdays exam'll be similar to june11 and so will have boundaries like that, so that I can leave out an entire question an still get very high UMS ~ 95+...lol 58/75 for an A* ...imagine

Agreed, im also hoping for a very tough paper on thursday as i'm prepped to a level to do far harder exams (such as the STEP papers and the AEA) and so really i find core 4 an absolute breeze. TBH moderately harder than june 011 and boundaries like 50+ for an A* would be even better .

My experience for june 11 was sitting at as a mock of a mock, and i got 73/75 ( i managed some daft algebra slip on the expansion question) so i just hope that i can pull off a similar performance on Thursday.

[Oromis263]

(Original post by rachaelizabeth)
I'm really dreading this exam.
I feel like I know the stuff really well, I know the content. But then it comes to past papers and I become a complete idiot and just don't know what they're asking me to do D:

Someone please help me :')

If you find some examples of questions you want to go through, post them here and I'll see what I can do.

[nmudz_009]

(Original post by In One Ear)
Agreed, im also hoping for a very tough paper on thursday as i'm prepped to a level to do far harder exams (such as the STEP papers and the AEA) and so really i find core 4 an absolute breeze. TBH moderately harder than june 011 and boundaries like 50+ for an A* would be even better .

My experience for june 11 was sitting at as a mock of a mock, and i got 73/75 ( i managed some daft algebra slip on the expansion question) so i just hope that i can pull off a similar performance on Thursday.

73/75 in that one is very good going indeed, so I'm sure you'll be fine for thursday. (65/75 was 100 UMS for june ) The good thing about c4 I guess is that it brings back a lot of maths from c1 and c2 (with the exception of vectors). I do tend to make a silly mistakes in rearranging and log rules an stuff like that. I'll probz lose most of my marks like that. People who like maths, tend to do better in c4 than c3, ive noticed. C3 requires you to remember stuff aswell.

Have you done core 4 jan 2011? the vectors one on that was an absolute killer- still dont get how to do it