OCR (not MEI) C1 - Wednesday 13th May 2015

Thank you! Just wondering if you know the question or coordinates for question 4?

Answers here:

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3327455

I wouldn't go as far as saying it's all I want to do, but it's not *too* bad anymore. Messed up the first part of the last question on the exam today and then needed my answer for that to get the full part of the second half correct but hoping I'll get method marks. Could have gone worse anyway Though I was talking to some people in the year above at my school and apparently FP3 is an absolute killer, so I'm really not looking forward to that.

My mistake sorry, i meant question 5
(ii) (7 marks)

I stuck with my trusty basic calculator. Probably quite lucky because (for the first time ever) they were checking makes of calculators as you went in. Though it was a French teacher doing this so she probably wouldn't have known any different if I'd said it was allowed... Luckily I got the matrix question right, or at least judging by everyone else's answers I did. How did you find it?

Ooh fair enough, yeh checking came really in handy today, especially with the transformation matrix question and the complex number square roots. I thought it was really nice, like the induction q was very easy and every other type of question was so standard (even the sum to infinity which can be tricky they made it easy). The only curveball question was probably the final roots one but I thought it was alright in the end, just needed to expand it out properly and methodically check you were inserting in the right numbers/squaring and subtracting the right things. Did you get 29 in the end? And also, how did you find it in general?

Despite spending a good few hours yesterday practising roots like "sub in root u for x" etc, I still managed to fail the first part of Q10 and just didn't get out any equation so in the end, I ended up writing "61 - 2*(whatever c was from part 1)" but I'm hoping that will be worth some method marks at least. Would hate to lose more than 4 out of 7 since if I'd managed the first bit, I would've got the answer. Rest of the paper was fine though Always knew it would be my worst exam so despite kicking myself over Q10i (within literally five minutes of leaving the exam I figured out how to do it) it could have been a lot worse. Just hoping to salvage my UMS with M1 and D1 since those are quite straightforward.

If I was to achieve B grade this year- is it hard to get an A in C3 and C4?

Ahh yeh a lot of people had the exact same issue as you with 10i . You just had to move the constant over to the other side then square the whole thing but a lot of people missed that so obviously it kind of screws you over for the next question. But examiners should mark that leniently anyway so yeh you should still get 3 or 4 method marks providing you'd done the correct steps . Agree with you, thought the rest of the paper was fine, hoping to get 100 UMS but we'll see...

UMS should help us out this paper, due to the last question i'm guessing grade boundaries at like 61/62 maybe? So you'd probably still score 90+ UMS even with that so that'd be very nice haha.

Didn't think to move the constant so spent a very long time squaring and multiplying by just about anything I could think of to no avail. I'm guessing I dropped around 7 or 8, which is a lot worse than all the other papers I've been doing but oh well, no use worrying about it now. Realistically I'm hoping for 85 UMS now, damn roots of polynomials!

We'll see come August... The rest of the country would have hated that question aswell so it'll balance itself out. Onwards to the next one then, have you got C2 next Wednesday then?

Slightly worried because 90% of people I've seen posting on here didn't struggle with the last question. Though I do seem to find that the majority of people who post are the ones who did well in the exam as surely people who came out in tears wouldn't want to scream it out to the whole world. If I don't make any stupid mistakes in the remaining 5 papers, I know I can get full UMS in those ones (whether I will or not is an entirely different question and I tend to do something really stupid on each paper, such as 5x2=5 on the C1 mock - no comment). But yeah, C2 next Wednesday I do quite like C2, it's that nice mix of easy enough to score 100 but slightly less boring than C1. The rest are after half term then so it's not too bad.

Yup exactly the same exams as you (not taking C3 though) so definitely agreed with that . I still find I have to be ultra careful which checking again and again just to stop making any mistakes like that (I've had 5+1=5 -_-) but some C2 stuff like logs is a little more challenging than normal. Either way, the calculator compensates a lot for it which is why I find C2 roughly similar in difficulty to C1. I think I can get full UMS in the rest of the modules aswell so I'm feeling confident for maths. My UMS average though will come down in Chem so it's a case of maximising maths and damage limitation in Chem to keep it above 95 (which is what I need for Cambridge :/)...

Also students doing Further Maths on TSR? A fairly niche set of people who are all likely to do reasonably well (us included haha). People in my school found it hard and I'm pretty sure half of them didn't get the last question at all (no method marks or anything) so should be fine.

For question 8i I did a U shaped parabola passing through (0,-3), but I factorised wrong and so my other co ordinates were (-3/2,0) and (1,0) so how many marks would I lose and also this messed up 8ii as i did x < -3/2 and x > 1 so would I lose all the marks there or get error carried forward?

There's always the possibility than I can drop out of doing C3 if I'm struggling with it a week or so before the exam, right now I can manage about 95% on each paper but neither myself nor my teachers want me to take it if there's no chance of me getting 100% so that's somewhat reassuring Ah chemistry, how I don't miss that one :P I'm the same with the 95 UMS for Cambridge, if only econ was less competitive. Do you have any idea which colleges you were thinking of?
And I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who failed the last question (well not glad, I really hope they've all done well on the paper but you know). There are only two of us at my school who take FM (for some strange reason nobody else wanted the enjoyment of 5 AS levels) and the other girl is a potential Oxbridge maths applicant so naturally she found it easy too.

For question 8i I did a U shaped parabola passing through (0,-3), but I factorised wrong and so my other co ordinates were (-3/2,0) and (1,0) so how many marks would I lose and also this messed up 8ii as i did x < -3/2 and x > 1 so would I lose all the marks there or get error carried forward?