The Student Room Group

Solomons papers- equivalent ums boundaries? if any teachers can guess

I've been going through some solomons papers in preparation for C1 and C2 exams coming up and have been generally doing pretty good (~95-100%) but i just did a C1 paper and messed up pretty bad on a couple of questions and got 88%.

In reality, solomons are designed to be a little harder right?
i'm just wondering if any teachers or people could give an estimate what the UMS boundaries would be for the average solomons paper if they were sat as an actual exam, so i can know roughly whether i'm working at what i need to be getting (really want to max out my ums for C1 and C2 so the pressure is off for C3 and C4).
I think there is too much hype on solomon papers and how much harder they are.
At the end of the day some will be easier for you than others whether than is a 'real' past paper or the solomon ones. Some of the old edexcel spec papers and practice papers were tough. Its often the way when papers are written at the start of a new syllabus (as Solomon were).
Solomon were designed to be tougher, they were written in line with what the spec said would be in the course. Remember too that since then it could be argued the exams have been watered down.
I would be more concerned about nailing each topic and thinking how you can get max marks on the real exams.
I personally would get far more out of the Solomon worksheets than the exam papers. I think the later questions on each worksheet are far more interesting and look at building understanding.
Reply 2
Original post by m4ths/maths247
I think there is too much hype on solomon papers and how much harder they are.
At the end of the day some will be easier for you than others whether than is a 'real' past paper or the solomon ones. Some of the old edexcel spec papers and practice papers were tough. Its often the way when papers are written at the start of a new syllabus (as Solomon were).
Solomon were designed to be tougher, they were written in line with what the spec said would be in the course. Remember too that since then it could be argued the exams have been watered down.
I would be more concerned about nailing each topic and thinking how you can get max marks on the real exams.
I personally would get far more out of the Solomon worksheets than the exam papers. I think the later questions on each worksheet are far more interesting and look at building understanding.

where can i find the solomons worksheets?
i like the idea of that but because i'm doing the C1-4 within a month or so of eachother and i just find papers useful because i can print out one paper and have a good mix of different style questions to work through which stops me from going rusty on certain areas
Reply 3
Original post by m4ths/maths247
They are often kicking about online (rightly or wrongly!).
I won't post a link up out of respect for the copyright but they are pretty easy to find. :smile:

thanks for your help as always :smile: i sent you a message if that's ok
Reply 4
They are like only a tiny bit harder than normal core papers but for mechanics it's a different story...
Reply 5
Original post by Dilzo999
They are like only a tiny bit harder than normal core papers but for mechanics it's a different story...

ok, so basically i 88% would probably be around the same as a normal paper, so like 90ums?
Reply 6
Original post by lmorgan95
ok, so basically i 88% would probably be around the same as a normal paper, so like 90ums?

Who knows... 88% would roughly be about 85/86 I'd say. Maybe 90 if it was a hard paper.

Quick Reply

Latest