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OCR MEI FP1 Thread - AM 20th May 2016

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Reply 260
Original post by phoebeisgreat
What do you think the boundary will be for 100 ums?


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All depends upon what they set the A grade at, if A grade is set for 50 ish I would say 100 ums will be middle 60.
Original post by aeroline1999
I know how you feel, were you retaking then if your doing M2 as well this year? This was my first time round but I reckon I'm gonna have to retake. Shame because I got off to such a good start with History and C1 on Wednesday. I really hope I can pick it up again in D1 and my other normal maths modules, because I don't want it to screw up my uni application. I was hoping for all A's, but now thats increasingly looking unlikely.
It's my first time as well, self taught fp1 m2 and m3
Original post by Keys10
All depends upon what they set the A grade at, if A grade is set for 50 ish I would say 100 ums will be middle 60.


If A is 50ish what will be B?
Original post by Adam_AFC
Yes to both questions. They made use the cosine rule and 0.5ABsinC for only 2 marks.


I'm pretty sure they wanted you to use the determinent of the inverse matrix that you just found. The inverse makes the shape 1/(8+2p) smaller, so it you apply the matrix you make it (8+2p) larger. In this case p=3 so it was made 14 times larger. Simple GCSE stuff told you that the area of the triangle was (1/2 x base x height) do that for both triangles. This adds up to 12 units^2.

Multiply 14 by 12 and you get 168 units^2.
I think they wanted you to use that instead of the cosine rule, but as long as you got the answer.
Tbh I dont think it will be that low for 100 ums... I would say it is round about 68/69 according to previous grade boundaries. This paper is hard but then the trickiest question (w/j) is only worth like 2 marks....
Reply 265
Original post by lilrabbits
Tbh I dont think it will be that low for 100 ums... I would say it is round about 68/69 according to previous grade boundaries. This paper is hard but then the trickiest question (w/j) is only worth like 2 marks....


On that question what was w? People at my school thought it was meant to be (Z/j)
Original post by Keys10
On that question what was w? People at my school thought it was meant to be (Z/j)


It is w but it won't matter so long as your final solutions are correct.
Reply 267
Original post by lilrabbits
It is w but it won't matter so long as your final solutions are correct.


I got the right answer but I wrote with Z and not W? sure thats okay?
Original post by Keys10
I got the right answer but I wrote with Z and not W? sure thats okay?


I'm sure you will be fine. One mark should be awarded for multiplying the solutions by j and the other mark for getting the correct answers.
Original post by klosovic
ugh I just realized on the last question I did the sum of n=50 - n=20 when I should have done n=50 - n=19 :frown: should still get method marks though?

I thought the paper was alright overall, only question I couldn't do at all was the f(w/j)=0 one.

I didn't have time to check though, so I probably made a couple of stupid mistakes.


I did the same thing with n=20 instead of n=19 but hopefully we will get method marks for n=50 and only lose maybe 2 marks
Original post by chemari1
If A is 50ish what will be B?


Assuming we are very lucky and an A is 50 ish, a B will be about 43 ish (i.e. -7 raw marks from A)

Hope this helps :wink:
Does anyone remember how many marks those matrix questions were worth?
Original post by aeroline1999
No. only thing that matters is that you get an A because thats all you need for A* overall in FP1. Its just the A2 modules you need more than 90UMS in. Getting 100% doesn't count for anything. Last year I got full UMS in my IGCSE Biology exam and it means nothing. All i have is the same A* that 80% of the rest of people in my school got. All it meant was I won my schools biology prize that year. And in A-level maths it might not even mean that because you might not get 100UMS in the other modules. Of course its not a bad thing if you get 100UMS in FP1 its just attainment is capped beyond 80UMS. However it does mean you can screw up another module and still get an A* overall, assuming its an AS module. If its A2 you can't. So yeah, basically meaningless, sorry.

Oh and yeah, you need 100% of raw marks. They just scale it down. TBH no one understands UMS after 80 anyway so could be wrong. But I tried testing it on OCR's UMS converter mefthingy and basically yeah, its 100% = 100UMS which is basically the only time UMS matches properly to percentage. Not like that for GCSE/ IGCSE though or other exam boards. Its just MEI have really high boundaries because only pretentious schools who think they are better than everyone else use MEI (like mine) because the boundaries are too high and the questions harder. And thus the vicious downward (or upward if we're talking grade boundaries) continues, because only "clever" people end up doing it so the boundaries are inaccurate and artificially higher because of self-selection (except I wasn't given a b*****y choice!), and so even less schools enter for MEI.

Why we don't just have 1 national exam board I don't know! It would actual create some consistency and accuracy in the exam system. As it is the exam system is corrupt, inefficient, unfair, unreliable and inaccurate.


Yeah I agree that we should have 1 national exam board. Thanks for explaining it to me- I'm doing Further Maths for both years but my schools never really explained the UMS stuff to us at A-level just been told that you need to average at over 90% to get an A* in A2. My school doesn't even teach further maths so we've had to go else where like once a week. Reckon some schools only pick MEI because there are more modules (although why anyone would want to do NM is beyond me). Anyway, thanks again for explaining
how many marks was 7 I? does anyone have a copy of the paper?
Reply 274
Original post by chemari1
how many marks was 7 I? does anyone have a copy of the paper?


The first part of 7 was 5 marks, the whole question was 13 marks altogether I think.
Original post by Quido
The first part of 7 was 5 marks, the whole question was 13 marks altogether I think.

what was the quen the second part of 7 i.e. 7 ii)?
for the inequality question, was it ok to read straight from the graph, or did they want you to do it algebraically? it was 3 marks and there was a huge space for the answer...
Original post by Alex621
for the inequality question, was it ok to read straight from the graph, or did they want you to do it algebraically? it was 3 marks and there was a huge space for the answer...


Pretty sure the graphical method will be sufficient :tongue:
Original post by Alex621
for the inequality question, was it ok to read straight from the graph, or did they want you to do it algebraically? it was 3 marks and there was a huge space for the answer...


yeah graphical method is always fine where possible.
was part of question 9 to prove that the 3 terms for the method of differences sum is equal to the sum of them as just one term? how many marks would that be if so?

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