Mathematics examination paper from 1970

A-Level Maths shouldn't be like this, otherwise it would: put a lot of people off taking the subject or convince people to drop the subject, and thus, they will only have an education of up to GCSE Maths for when they go to university. So the only people who will benefit are the elite mathematicians. Also note, the demand for A-Level Maths teachers will decline because less people are choosing to study it, hence less jobs for mathematics graduates.

However, for the elite, 'we' are already challenging ourselves with AEA/STEP/MAT and the paper provided by Mr M is no harder than AEA.

When 90% of an average year group can master STEP III, then it will be appropriate to increase the difficulty of the A-Level exams.

<snip>

This isn't a-level standard, this is more comparable to STEP.

This is a very old thread, but since its come up again, do you happen to have the A-Level Maths paper from 1975?

Let me look under my sofa.



Nope!

There was more than one A Level paper in 1975 and no-one maintains a complete collection.

Do you by any chance happen to have old A-Level syllabi?

I don't think so.

Worth a shot. Do the exam boards keep them? Shocked they don't have a full set of old past papers...

they were back then! but that isn't the approach expected ... i looked at gradients too

Do you by any chance happen to have old A-Level syllabi?

Examination paper nostalgia may be a relatively recent development.

As MrM points out, there were several A Level (and for that matter O level) exam boards and syllabi at that time.

I too would be curious to see some of the papers I sat from the 1980s.

You may be interested to know that we studied a Modern Maths syllabus (moderated by the School Mathematics Project) at my school - for my O Level exam (not even A Level!) we had to learn:

matrices and vectors including multiplication of rectangular matrices of various sizes
determinants and matrix inverses of 2x2 inverses
use of matrices to represent 2D transformations - rotations, reflections and shear
modular arithmetic
groups - basic group tables and knowledge of the axioms
converting numbers between different number bases e.g. decimal and hexadecimal or base-5 to base-8
basic set notation - inclusion, is-an-element-of, subsets, empty set
basic topology - Euler's formula for polygons (and possibly polyhedra)
logarithms

I can also remember in class that we looked at the Fibonacci and Farey sequences, and tessellations of various shapes.

For the SMP A Level there was a strong focus on vector techniques in kinematics, and the standard A level syllabus included complex numbers.


I had a look at some Further Maths papers from a traditional syllabus at the time and they included questions on partial differentiation!

There's definitely an assumption now that teenage students are incapable of studying anything vaguely interesting or out of the ordinary

As MrM points out, there were several A Level (and for that matter O level) exam boards and syllabi at that time.

I too would be curious to see some of the papers I sat from the 1980s.

You may be interested to know that we studied a Modern Maths syllabus (moderated by the School Mathematics Project) at my school - for my O Level exam (not even A Level!) we had to learn:

matrices and vectors including multiplication of rectangular matrices of various sizes
determinants and matrix inverses of 2x2 inverses
use of matrices to represent 2D transformations - rotations, reflections and shear
modular arithmetic
groups - basic group tables and knowledge of the axioms
converting numbers between different number bases e.g. decimal and hexadecimal or base-5 to base-8
basic set notation - inclusion, is-an-element-of, subsets, empty set
basic topology - Euler's formula for polygons (and possibly polyhedra)
logarithms

I can also remember in class that we looked at the Fibonacci and Farey sequences, and tessellations of various shapes.

For the SMP A Level there was a strong focus on vector techniques in kinematics, and the standard A level syllabus included complex numbers.


I had a look at some Further Maths papers from a traditional syllabus at the time and they included questions on partial differentiation!

There's definitely an assumption now that teenage students are incapable of studying anything vaguely interesting or out of the ordinary

Do you by any chance happen to have old A-Level syllabi?

Here you go ...

Here are the London (later to become Edexcel) syllabuses for O Level (GCSE equivalent) and A Level for 1952. The lack of detail compared to present-day specifications is notable.

Thanks! Did further maths not exist back in 1952? (So you had to take all of today's equivalent of C1-C4, FP1-FP3 to get a single A-Level?).

Also: "The questions will be of a simple and straightforward character". Clearly dumbing down was an issue in the 1950s too

EDIT: The difference between O level maths and GCSE higher tier is just shocking. How can anyone with a straight face say that these are comparable qualifications? The A-Levels hold up far better than that.

The reason I was asking for the syllabi around 1970 is because I believe that's around the time when there is a proliferation of exam boards, and the introduction of a set theoretic approach to the A-Levels. I'm curious to see how much set theory / abstract algebra actually made it into the A-Levels, and whether its like the current MEI syllabus for FP3 (I.e. pretty useless)

Now I'd say Maths A level today is no more taxing than the old GCE OA level Additional Maths 30 years ago .. shocking!