The Edexcel AEA (26/06/12 - AM) Revision Thread

Anyone sitting this exam next week? How're we feeling? Any areas of work that seem to always go wrong on AEA? Any advice? :P

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Reply 1

und

Yep.. Time to do some hardcore revision. What always seems to go wrong in AEA is that there are certain questions I can do in five minutes (eg trig, calculus) but others just leave me absolutely stumped, even if they're only worth a couple of marks. This causes me issues with time, because I end up spending a lot of time just for four or five marks. Also, there are sometimes questions I can do intuitively but don't really know how to show a clear method for.

Do you have an offer that depends on AEA? I'm in year 12 so there's not as much pressure to do well, but I'd still like to. :crossedf:

Reply 2

williamp7

Original post by und

Yeah I agree with you entirely on the first part...you can either do it really easily or you just sit there and waste time not being able to do it...and the worst thing is, as soon as you waste some time you're then completely thrown out of any kind of plan of attack :L I seem to find a lot of issues with things that are hard to integrate, yesterday got completely stumped with integrating tan^2 but on reflection its really easy :L

I always get stuck on Vector questions, so praying none come up on the real thing :L

As for things to do intuitively, I guess its best to not try and think lines ahead...think of the direction your going in and write down each line your doing in your head (even if it involves sketching)

Yes my current offer from Bath depends on a Merit in AEA :/ but I think I could get lucky if I get slightly higher grades I can have AEA removed (if it doesn't go well)...but as it stands, yes I need it :L

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Reply 3

isaac.newton

Original post by williamp7

Anyone sitting this exam next week? How're we feeling? Any areas of work that seem to always go wrong on AEA? Any advice? :P

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Can you please confirm the date of this exam and also I see on the website that the boundry for distinction is roughly 70, is that out of a 100 or 75?thx

Reply 4

drspa44

The exam is out of 100. 7 of those marks are bonus marks, which you get awarded for getting a question completely or nearly correct, plus one for a good paper throughout.

I have a question about the style/form aspects. What is an example of bad writing style that will lose you marks? For example, when I integrate by parts or differentiate a product I tend to work it out like: (eg. y=xsinx))

f x -> f' 1
g sinx -> g' cosx

dy/dx=xcosx+sinx

I don't like using u and v, because they look too similar. It seems like the sort of thing that you could do in your head anyway and I wasn't penalised in C3 or C4. Is it a problem?

I have an offer to Imperial resting on this and I think I'm capable of getting a merit, provided the standards of questions are level with 2010 and 2011.

Reply 5

williamp7

Well I'm on OCR (Doing the MEI course) for all my other exams so I wasn't sure if Edexcel had different dates for different centres (seeing as you're not allowed to discuss the exam until the day after)...for me its 26th June (Tuesday) at 9:00am :smile:

and then obviously we finish it at 12

My opinion on your presentation...I think as long as it is easy to see how you got from one line to the line below it (and you can do alot of steps from one line to the next) then you will get the QWC marks...where you have the solution dotted about the page with random multiplications, integrations or whatever and it isn't clear how to go from one step to the next, you will lose marks in the QWC aspect :smile:

You also lose QWC marks for numerical errors/silly mistakes :smile:

The way you've written down there about calculus looks fine, I can understand what you're doing from the way you've written it and if they don't penalise you in other exams, they're unlikely to in this one :smile:

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Reply 6

vienulo

I'm doing this exam tomorrow! Fortunately it's not part of my offer, but if I miss my offer but pass this, they're more likely to accept me. Personally I find parametric questions and circles inside a polygon questions hardest :/

Reply 7

raheem94

Taking it for fun tomorrow! Not a uni requirement.

I find trig and calculus quite easy, but vectors is my weakest topic!

Reply 8

williamp7

For parametric questions I find sticking to standard parametric differentiation techniques works best (rather than converting to Cartesian and then differentiating)

Polygons in shapes seems to come in the form of vectors nearly all the time...I think drawing a picture and then drawing triangles within the picture works well normally :smile:

(I say this, when I'm doing past papers its never this easy and I can never do that :L XD)

The key to this thing is to think that the number of marks is normally approximately equal to the number of lines needed for the question...so if its taking a stupid number of lines, leave it and try something else!!! Chances are there's a far easier way :L

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Reply 9

Maths-geek

Can someone please help me with this question, it's from the June 2008 paper, question 6

f(x) = (ax+b)/(x+2) ; x ∈ ℝ, x ≠ – 2,
where a and b are constants and b > 0.
(a) Find f^–1(x).

(b) Hence, or otherwise, find the value of a so that ff(x) = x.

The curve C has equation y = f(x) and f(x) satisfies ff(x) = x.
(c) On separate axes sketch
(i) y = f(x),

(ii)y = f(x – 2) + 2.

On each sketch you should indicate the equations of any asymptotes and the coordinates, in terms of b, of any intersections with the axes.

The normal to C at the point P has equation y = 4x – 39. The normal to C at the point Q has equation y = 4x + k , where k is a constant.
(d) By considering the images of the normals to C on the curve with equation
y = f(x – 2) + 2, or otherwise, find the value of k.

I've found f^-1(x) to be (b-2x)/(x-a), but I didn't understand the rest, I've always struggled with functions, any help would be great

Reply 10

Chiraga

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/statistics/courses/aea

Extended solutions really helpful !

Reply 11

Tomcrease

Original post by Chiraga

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/statistics/courses/aea

Extended solutions really helpful !

Bit late for prep now but this is great, I genuinely love you

Reply 12

crookes

do you need to know any formulae for this exam? not looked at any past papers and i'm doing it tomorrow

Reply 13

Xyonzz

Original post by crookes

do you need to know any formulae for this exam? not looked at any past papers and i'm doing it tomorrow

Same position as you, but I'm just going in there and doing it for fun! But good luck to everyone who needs it for their offer :smile:

Reply 14

Chiraga

Original post by Tomcrease

Bit late for prep now but this is great, I genuinely love you

Yep maybe a tad late.. Good luck for tomorrow everyone :smile:

Reply 15

fruktas

Good luck to everyone tomorrow! I need it for my insurance in Imperial :smile:

Reply 16

Maths-geek

Original post by Chiraga

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/statistics/courses/aea

Extended solutions really helpful !

Thank you so much, you're a life saver!

Original post by crookes

do you need to know any formulae for this exam? not looked at any past papers and i'm doing it tomorrow

You might need to know the standard sin 30, cos 30, sin 60, cos 60 etc, but I think they give the rest in the formula booklet they give (hopefully)

Good Luck everyone!

Reply 17

williamp7

Good luck everyone :smile:

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