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How did you find this year's FP1 (EDEXCEL)

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Original post by Music With Rocks

I found it very tricky, I have managed to get 100% in one of the FP1 past papers before but in this exam I could not do 8b or 8c for the life of me. I think that may be my hopes of an A at further maths down the drain :frown:

Not necessarily. You need 240 UMS for an A. Assuming you get decent A's in the other 2 modules you're doing FM you could still get one, providing you got more than 40ish UMS in this (which would be an E).

Reply 61

StarvingAutist

Original post by Xin Xang

But it was a dot product .... :confused:

It wasn't. If it was, SP and SQ would be written in vector notation.

Reply 62

Xin Xang

Original post by StarvingAutist

It wasn't. If it was, SP and SQ would be written in vector notation.

Technically

But in this case, A and B only had one component, which is the general multiplication you are referring to.

So SP.SQ is legitimate.

Reply 63

creativebuzz

Original post by TeeEm

I can also tell you the FP1 is not the type of module you can easily get 100%.

You see, I agree with you but my teacher doesnt. He claims that fp1 is easier than c2 and fp1 is an easy way of getting 100%

Reply 64

TeeEm

Original post by creativebuzz

You see, I agree with you but my teacher doesnt. He claims that fp1 is easier than c2 and fp1 is an easy way of getting 100%

well that is my personal experience from my own students

Reply 65

Jabberjay_

Well that exam was a day to remember. With 30 minutes left to go... the fire alarm went off, we continued working... this went on for about 10 minutes. Then we had to leave the room, make our way downstairs, only to be told to go back up. Fire alarm wouldn't turn off for about 15 minutes after that. After which we got so much extra time I can't even remember. What a day!!

Reply 66

Stoyan981

I think the paper was okay, apart from the last question. Arghh.

Do you reckon I can get an A if question 8 is wrong. Part a.) I ended up with (-6p) extra but I think I can pick up some marks for using (√(x-x1)^2+(y-y2)^2). Also part be I just differentiated y^2=12x and found the equations of the tangents, however I didn't found the coordinates of R. How many marks I would lose? - 4? :frown:

I didn't have time for part c.) of the question...

Overall I think that the grade boundaries will be as follows:

A - 64 marks
B - 57 marks
C - 49 marks
D - 41 marks
E - 34 marks

what do you think?

Reply 67

username1162972

Original post by kprime2

I wouldn't use the term 'hard' to describe it. I would say it was tricky, and definitely harder than last years paper. Last year's paper was heaven and only required 62 for an A. I reckon this years boundaries would be 60 for an A.

The last question was all in terms of p and q which made things really messy. Due to a sign slip I reckon I lost about 2 marks (out of 8) on that. And the last part of the last question was dependent on the previous part so I lost all 3 marks on that. Overall, expecting 70/75 (or in the absolute worse case 69/75).

FP1 boundaries tend not to drop. Last years FP1 paper was the hardest so far so if this one is actually harder then maybe they will drop. But I sat last years paper and I would say mkne was hard due to exam conditions. Cant wait to see the paper and make a proper judgement of it....

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Reply 68

Maetras

Harder topics did come up but I think I got 75/75. It was an average paper. Some of the answers were weird though. Also for the matrix question you only has to the value of c right? Not sub it in to get the area of T?

Reply 69

TeeEm

Original post by Stoyan981

I didn't have time for part c.) of the question...

Overall I think that the grade boundaries will be as follows:

A - 64 marks
B - 57 marks
C - 49 marks
D - 41 marks
E - 34 marks

what do you think?

possible

Reply 70

Maetras

What's this about the dot product? For SR^2=SP.SQ you would just do LHS and RHS and show they are the same.

Reply 71

Xin Xang

Original post by target21859

What's this about the dot product? For SR^2=SP.SQ you would just do LHS and RHS and show they are the same.

Apparently it was "unfair" that the edexcel used the dot notation as some students "mistakenly" thought that it meant the dot product.

I was simply pointing out that it technically is a dot product.

Reply 72

Maetras

Original post by Xin Xang

Apparently it was "unfair" that the edexcel used the dot notation as some students "mistakenly" thought that it meant the dot product.

I was simply pointing out that it technically is a dot product.

Oh I see. Yeah lucky my fp1 teacher uses the dot.

Reply 73

ThatPerson

Original post by Xin Xang

Apparently it was "unfair" that the edexcel used the dot notation as some students "mistakenly" thought that it meant the dot product.

I was simply pointing out that it technically is a dot product.

I think either notation would've confused people. If they used a cross instead some people would mistake it for the cross product.

Reply 74

username1162972

Original post by Xin Xang

Apparently it was "unfair" that the edexcel used the dot notation as some students "mistakenly" thought that it meant the dot product.

I was simply pointing out that it technically is a dot product.

Only if they put SR/SQ in vector form in bold or with the arrows.

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Reply 75

Xin Xang

Original post by physicsmaths

Only if they put SR/SQ in vector form in bold or with the arrows.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Oh. I had always thought that the general multiplication we use is a specific case of the dot product.

For example xy=(x,0,0,0,...,0) . (y,0,0,0,...,0)

So writing SQ.SR is technically a dot product, right?

But I understand that the bold notation is specifically used to represent vectors.

Reply 76

Tiri

Its interesting to see how the voting poll has suggested it was a hard exam

Reply 77

lukejoshjames

Original post by Tiri

Its interesting to see how the voting poll has suggested it was a hard exam

I voted it a hard exam. I still think I did well in it, but compared to most past papers I did, it was slightly harder.

Reply 78

Tiri

Original post by lukejoshjames

I voted it a hard exam. I still think I did well in it, but compared to most past papers I did, it was slightly harder.

where did you drop marks out of curiosity?

Reply 79

lukejoshjames

Original post by Tiri

where did you drop marks out of curiosity?

I honestly don't think I dropped any, and if I did it was a stupid mistake in the first question lol, but still it took me some time to complete when usually I finish the papers in 45 minutes or so.