WJEC AS Mathematics - How are you feeling?

C1 Paper in 6 days, C2 in 13 days. You guys feeling confident? Also which module do you feel most confident in?

Both. They're the easiest modules in the entire of A Level!! XD

That's true, they're rather easy. I'm doing past papers and I feel quite confident but I always make extremely avoidable mistakes. Such as transcription errors. Especially in C1. I'm more confident in C2 tbh

I recently got the casio calculator that does integrals (shhh!) so I can check those answers. It's mainly about checking every step WHILE your doing the question, since checking afterwards is much less effective due to the 'I'm finished' mindset and the fact that you're not completely engaged with each question as you were when you were doing them. But still try to leave about half an hour if possible for checking at the end.
What do you think the tricky question(s) will be like this year? Remember the inflection and kite questions in last year's C1? I bet they'll put throw in even more oddball questions this year, but to be honest I'm happy about it because it means I'll actually have to think to do the questions!

I got that calculator also. It's very useful for the first question (Trapezium Rule) because you can very quickly construct a table for it on your calculator and just copy the table down and fill it in. It saves quite a bit of time!

I have a feeling binomial expansion questions wont be to great, they're always fiddly as they are. Perhaps a couple of questions on optimisation from the more difficult end? Hopefully it's not too different to the past papers like the post above said because I'm pretty confident doing these papers!

For C2, I think it will be a couple of mind challenging questions. I'm good at Geometric Series & Arithmetic series. But in some of the pastpapers, some geometric series questions were absolutely horrific. Decimals & fractions, very easy to trip up on.

I think there are fresh individuals writing for WJEC, so there is a good chance of very unusual questions...
(WJEC was a true joke for A level Maths ... totally unacceptable, so changes were inevitable)

Wow I forgot that you could use the table method for the ordinates, thanks!
Yeah, that's what I was thinking too, maybe a different optimisation problem this time instead of the "usual" volume of a cuboid. I'd like it though. I think they have to keep it somewhat similar, since they have no choice or grade boundaries will plummet (which will probably favour us ) but they'll try and spices things up a little.
C2 they have a chance to make somewhat hard. Watch out for the circle geometry questions at the end, they do state in the spec. 3 circle theorems that you need to know that most people don't.
How's S1 for you? I've never completed a whole paper except for a couple of mock papers that the school made so I really need to start proper revision. I seem to be the only one who finds S1 harder than C1 and C2? I even find S2 easier, and that's and A2 FM module!!

How do I choose an appropriate scale for large numbers (graphs)

I've struggled a lot with choosing the right scale. So, let's say for instance I had 4, 26, 45, 68, 145, 300, 800, 1300 and I had to plot these values in the y - axis. How do I do that?

Thanks for the circle theorem hint, I'll have a look into the theorems.

S1 is indeed harder than pure. Many of my friends agree. The problem with Statistics is that you can't check your answer on the majority of questions. Or maybe you can but I'm not aware? Which is what makes statistics even harder.

Another major factor is notation. But provided you know that well, you shouldn't find S1 too bad. A lot of S1 is just based on memorisation of rules and formulae that can be applied to questions. Also, I think that very little is actually based on application of knowledge like the Core Papers. I think for Stats, you either know it, or you don't. There's simply no in-between.

The last time I did a stats past paper, it took me literally 3 hours to complete it and I didn't even do well on it

I haven't done S2 before. I'm considering taking M1 next year instead of S2, seeing that S1 is bad enough. Should I carry on with S2 or should I change to M1 next year? I don't know anyone that's done it so I'm torn between the 2.

Yeah and I think with S1 you still need to think to answer every question and those 'tricky questions' have the potential to be A LOT harder than tricky questions in the pure modules, just because it can be hard to know exactly how to approach the question. I wouldn't say S1 is hard, but it does take work and you do need to understand what your doing.Well in all honesty I think I might be finding S2 easier. BUT, if you like understanding everything you're doing inside-out like most mathematicians then S2 will really get on your nerves. Half of the module is rote memorisation with very little deep understanding, purely because the concepts have their foundations in university-level mathematics (such as the chi-squared distribution etc.). But then again, S1 does have a bit of this type of problem as well. You might be very bored by S2, but then again you might like it (especially if you like all the pdf and CDF stuff like me). Of course, there is the problem that I do AQA FM and you're probably doing WJEC Maths, so my S2 is AQA.I would say it's very much down to your desired career/uni path, that is, how relevant statistics and mechanics are. If I was in your position, I'd go for M1 any day, purely because I really like mechanics and I don't like stats too much (and I like pure about 500x as much as mechanics ). I'm doing a Maths degree, which is why I'd opt for my favourite modules. It doesn't really matter that much for me.But yeah, I'd say M1 if there's no reason to do S2. You'll learn (understand) a lot more!

You know on the mark scheme, say for example there's a 5 mark question. Does this mean you MUST show roughly 5 lines of working out? Because in mark schemes they reward the marks for every line of workings out and then the answer only gets 1 mark. When I asked my teacher, he told me that provided you get the answer correct, you will get all the marks. Which means you can skip steps in your workings out to save time. I'm just asking to make sure this is the case, it's better to be safe than sorry. He told me that the marks for the workings out are only given specifically when you get the answer wrong.

So how did everyone find it?

didnt expect to see optimzation to come up...

Honestly it was bloody well hard. People were leaving in tears. I mean, you could do some of the questions (ie. your 1st principles, polynomial etc.) but the last question was a killer to be honest and the first question wasn't great either (even though it usually is the gimme marks). Hope grade boundaries for a C are generous because a low C is the highest I'm getting!