EDEXCEL IGCSE Maths

OK i need Serious IGCSE Edexcel help!!!!!!

My Exams are two weeks away

And I'm working at about 70-75% on practice papers.

However this is not good enough for my school and i need 80% which is an A* or i will not be accepted to do maths at A-Level.

Has anyone who has done Edexcel IGCSE or is doing it now got any tips for how to improve in two weeks :confused:

On the last mock i did i got 75%.

Thank you to anyone who replies :frown:

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Reply 1

tba

I'm doing IGCSE Edexcel Maths aswell, and it seems to be harder than other exam boards as it includes stuff such as differentiation (correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think other boards set this).

I am aiming for an A* (80%) and am also getting 70-80% on papers, but I am not doing them under timed conditions and I am using textbooks and revision guides (CGP) for reference.

If you look on the bright side, you're only one or two questions away from 80%! Often it's silly mistakes which I could have avoided if I had checked through the paper at the end which bring the marks and grades down. And, if you don't get 80% on one paper, then you can always make up the marks in the next unless you have underperformed considerably.

Are your exams on the 17th and 18th of May?

Does anyone know of a good revision site for IGCSE Edexcel Maths?

Reply 2

SKC

Indeed i made many silly mistakes, and if i didn't i would have got 83-86% :frown:

And my exams are at the same time as you.

my maths set has lots of pressure on it, as we're doing an Additional Maths qualification and thats really hard :mad:

Hopefully we'll get A* :smile:

Reply 3

purple-girl

Same here, I'm doing exactly the same-IGCSE and Additional. I'm finding the IGCSE pretty simple to be honest (not meaning to brag) and I'm now getting used to the Additional stuff. With IGCSE the boundaries are approx:

A*: 80%
A: 62%
B: 44%
C: 27%
D: 15%

Reply 4

tba

What's all this additional stuff? Haven't heard of it at all!

Anyway, do you find those questions where theres a circle with triangles in and you have to find lengths or angles using circle properties etc, difficult? can never seem to get my head round them and that's with a revision guide in front of me! Has anyone got any tips on how to solve these questions easily and how to learn all the circle / shape properties so that I can remember them in the exam? Also, are there more circle properties that we have to learn for IGCSE than other boards?

Which textbooks are you using, or do we all use the Edexcel IGCSE ones (book 1 is pink and book 2 is blue)?

Looking at the grade boundaries, I think it would be fairly easy to get an A but borderline on an A* - it just depends if it's your day or not, unless you can force yourself somehow to work out the questions (don't know about you, but some questions just seem almost impossible to me, like those circle ones and graphs with equations and transformations and...).

Reply 5

Catchetat

.. i do Edexcel but our grade boundary is like 90% for A* .. wth................

Reply 6

purple-girl

The additional is an extra Free-standing mathematics qualification (FSMQ) that's aimed at the higher ability yr 11 students. It's basically just 1/2 of the AS course.

As for the circles, you just need to memorise the circle theorems, and know how to recognise when to use them. There's one that's only on the IGCSE, which is the intersecting chords theorem, but that's not too difficult-I think it's pretty easy to recognise and it isn't usually included with other questions. I think the only additional thing that isn't on the GCSE is differentiation, but that's not too hard. Nothing harder than stationary points, and it CAN get a lot harder at AS...

We've still got the old AQA textbook, as we're the first year to be doing the IGCSE, but this year we've just been usuing the Additional textbook, and for non-additional stuff just random sheets. I dunno what future years will do-maybe they'll invest in new textbooks, or they may just keep the same ones, as they cover the same stuff, mostly.

Reply 7

SKC

Yeah, we're doing the Binomial Expansion stuff, its quite hard to get your head around first right now.

We're using the IGCSE book 1/2 pink/blue as well.

I used to be working at an A* level with an average of 88% as well around September/October, and now i've just dropped, right around exam time, which isn't helpful :frown:

Reply 8

purple-girl

Ah, Binomial expansion. I thought that that was one of the easier parts :tongue:

. I don't like the trig stuff...bah. Algebra's fine, I can do that. Calculus, well, it can be confusing with the area under a graph thing, but it's not too bad really.

Reply 9

Chezua

tba

Does anyone know of a good revision site for IGCSE Edexcel Maths?

MyMaths.co.uk

though your school has to register for it first =P

Reply 10

Inquilaab

i have some in printed form :/ but cant really scan them..

try finding the gcse math exams..theyre pretty similar sans functions/differentiation

Reply 11

kinza75

I have a revision book but it's for GCSE so no differentiation or functions or anything! Well annoying...

exam on thurs!! ARGH

Reply 12

purple-girl

Yeah, exams on Thursday and Friday...good luck everyone! Anyone else have RS at the same time on Thursday? Not really looking forward to that day. AND Have to be kept supervised over lunch...

Reply 13

Don John

i kno few in my year who r doin r.s., but i have my ocr latin lang paper 1 tomorrow! wish me luck :toung:

Reply 14

purple-girl

Same here jbaldie! Though I'm more scared about the other Language paper, the much harder one...same time as Roman Civ Are you doing those or are you doing the other Lit paper/coursework? Are you doing Vergil Aeneid book 4 next week too?? Same day as English Lit...I'm NOT looking forward to that day at all! Good luck with all your exams anyway.

Reply 15

SKC

I'm doing Latin as well and that paper was ok today, worried bout verse lit and english lit next tuesday.

I'm seriously scared of IGCSE Maths though =(

Any last minute revision tips?

Reply 16

tba

Yeah any revision tips would be really helpful! I still haven't really started revising yet, but I have the rest of today and tomorrow which I plan to make good use of. Do you think you can get an A* just by revising maths theories, practicing past papers and learning rules just in one day?

And good luck everyone!

Reply 17

useful_idiot

tba

Do you think you can get an A* just by revising maths theories, practicing past papers and learning rules just in one day?

Well thats what I'm going to be doing, so i hope it is possible. I got 76% in my mocks, but in the past papers I've been getting +80% so hopefully just going over more past papers will help me get an A*, as I'm doing Maths Stats next year.

My only big problem out of the whole syllabus is stupid Calculus, which isn't in the other exam boards, so I'll be learning that tomorrow!

Reply 18

SKC

Calculus is fine for me, problems are vectors and sometimes handling data stuff, and also stupid mistakes because i don't check through :frown:

Good luck all though!

Reply 19

useful_idiot

SKC

stupid mistakes

I'm exactly the same. I finish the paper, and i check through, normally find a few slip ups, and then i don't check a few, and i end up having pressed the wrong buttons in my calculator! :mad: