Edexcel A Level Further Mathematics Paper 3A (9FM0 3A) - 22nd June 2023 [Exam Chat]

Original post by moheat13

Am I the only one who likes conics. I think they're the easiest ones. Reducible differential equations and vectors though...

Every time I see an ellipse I want to stick my had through it and hang myself. Reducibles are free marks for me

Reply 22

moheat13

8

Original post by The tesseract

Every time I see an ellipse I want to stick my had through it and hang myself. Reducibles are free marks for me

Nah I feel like every time I need to do a conics question everything I need to know is already in that one table in the formula booklet. I can never do the rearranging for the DE's but after that they're generally OK, vectors though I've just accepted I'm not getting marks for that bit.

Reply 23

Original post by moheat13

Nah I feel like every time I need to do a conics question everything I need to know is already in that one table in the formula booklet. I can never do the rearranging for the DE's but after that they're generally OK, vectors though I've just accepted I'm not getting marks for that bit.

Yeah the first part of the question is generally nice. If it wants a tangent or normal that's 5 free marks. It's the problem solving that comes after which usually ****s me

Reply 24

Screenshot 2023-06-21 at 15.13.20.png171.0KB

Original post by moheat13

Am I the only one who likes conics. I think they're the easiest ones. Reducible differential equations and vectors though...

Conics are fine, as long as they don’t involve 11-mark proof questions that require like 8 straight pages of working to complete lmao.

Reducible DE’s are usually fine, though weirdly, I tend to c0ck up the simpler first order ones more often than the second order ones.

Vectors are mostly fine. I just need to stop making silly little mistakes with things like the volumes of tetrahedrons where I forget to divide the scalar triple product by 6.

Reply 25

Lucysc

3

hey if anyone has done the 2022 paper, does anyone get how you know to reject y=8x+24 for question 7? it says correct reason for rejection is not needed for the mark but im confused as to how you can tell.

Reply 26

Original post by Lucysc

hey if anyone has done the 2022 paper, does anyone get how you know to reject y=8x+24 for question 7? it says correct reason for rejection is not needed for the mark but im confused as to how you can tell.

Try solving |x^2 - 8| = 8x + 24

x^2 - 8 = 8x + 24 or 8 - x^2 = 8x + 24
x^2 - 8x - 32 = 0 or x^2 + 8x + 16 = 0
==> x = 4 ± 4√ 3 or x = -4

Checking for extraneous solutions (i.e plugging all the solutions into y = |x^2 - 8| and y = 8x + 24 to see if they are consistent):

x = 4 + 4√ 3 gives consistent y values
x = 4 - 4√ 3 gives consistent y values
x = -4 does not give consistent y values, so it is not a valid solution.

So there would only be two intersections, rather than the required three as per the sketch and the line above part (a)

Reply 27

Noah1807

8

Original post by moheat13

Am I the only one who likes conics. I think they're the easiest ones. Reducible differential equations and vectors though...

Tbh reducibles, vectors and conics are the most 'variable' of all the topics on the FP1 specification. They can be super easy, or super difficult: depending on how much problem-solving they introduce into each style of question. But broadly speaking so long as I'm not stressed out of my mind, I like all three subjects.

Reply 28

Labradoodle1

16

Original post by moheat13

Am I the only one who likes conics. I think they're the easiest ones. Reducible differential equations and vectors though...

Conics can be nice, but they can also be very evil.

Reply 29

Noah1807

8

Original post by TypicalNerd

Who here has done the FP1 papers from mock sets 1 and 2?

Is it just me or was the mock set 2 paper about a hundred times easier than the mock set 1 paper?

I tried both 'mock sets' today. On #1 I scored c90% (dropped a couple explanation marks and the value for 'h' wasn't specified), and I tried a few select questions for #2 and had no issues either really. I just dread that they'll make more involved questions than those on a very humid day lol.

Reply 30

Original post by Noah1807

I tried both 'mock sets' today. On #1 I scored c90% (dropped a couple explanation marks and the value for 'h' wasn't specified), and I tried a few select questions for #2 and had no issues either really. I just dread that they'll make more involved questions than those on a very humid day lol.

It probably isn’t so much difficulty related tbh.

I just made stupid mistakes left, right and centre on mock set 1. I had been working consistently for about 2 hours without a break before starting the paper, which probably didn’t help.

I took a 15 minute break to have a drink and a snack, then did much better on mock set 2.

Reply 31

Really nice practice for RDE's if anyone is interested

If there's easy conics, should be good.

Reply 33

Original post by DanielK1456

If there's easy conics, should be good.

yeah the questions that worry me are vectors are conics. If they're nice, gg

Reply 34

Original post by DanielK1456

If there's easy conics, should be good.

Weierstrauss substitution go brrrrrrr

(edited 10 months ago)

Reply 35

Original post by TypicalNerd

Weierstrauss substitution go brrrrrrr

That's not too bad if you just learn some tricks on how to integrate. If not, do something like +1-1 it works lol. Something like t^2/(1+t^2). You add 1 then subtract 1 on the numerator so you have the 1+t^2 bits cancel and you're left with a constant + a standard arctan integral. easy

Reply 36

Original post by The tesseract

That's not too bad if you just learn some tricks on how to integrate. If not, do something like +1-1 it works lol. Something like t^2/(1+t^2). You add 1 then subtract 1 on the numerator so you have the 1+t^2 bits cancel and you're left with a constant + a standard arctan integral. easy

Oh I know it’s generally pretty easy, but it’s just a pain to memorise everything for it.

Reply 37

Original post by TypicalNerd

Oh I know it’s generally pretty easy, but it’s just a pain to memorise everything for it.

Yeah I just memorise 2 of the formulas, everything else can be quickly derived. Oh and turning the dx into dt as well it's worth memorising

Reply 38

J.DEM

6

I know predicting is a very non fool-proof thing to do, but shouldn't we expect to see a differential equation perhaps using first order , I believe the only other time they did this was 2021.

Reply 39