Edexcel FP2 Official 2016 Exam Thread - 8th June 2016

Looking back to this morning, I think I would class the method of differences question as 'out of the ordinary'.
Aside from that everything else was do-able.
4b) was weird yes, I wasn't able to spot the IBP method but in hindsight it seems quite obvious, exam pressure got me I guess. I wouldn't class it as 'out of the ordinary' but a lot of people seem to have been stuck on that, it is different.
8b was nasty purely because the angle wasn't a standard pi/4 or pi/6 etc. It caused some messy working out but was by no means hard.

I would just say forget about FP2 and focus on the rest of your upcoming exams. Also remember the grade boundaries are determined on how the country performs, and by the looks of it people found it the paper generally hard.
Don't expect A* to fall to a lot though. Last year so many people were angry about the C3 exam, and loads of people were predicting 60 for an A*. Turned out to be 65 for an A*

I think 67 for an A* would be a sensible prediction (plus or minus 1).

Yes, though FP2 and FP3 can't go in to your normal A-Level Maths qualification, keep that in mind.

Thanks. I did C1,C2,D1,D2,M1,FP1 last year and am doing C3,C4,S1,M2,S2,FP2 this year. Currently I have FP1,M1 and D2 as part of my AS Further Maths so they could swap D2 with FP2 correct?

Well to be fair the boundary for full in C3 fell significantly to 71. Usually it's 74

My heart rate increases to some phenomenal level.
My interesting life:
I get to the last question with plenty of time to go, thinking, OK, I've got loads of time to do this polar coordinate question correctly. So solve for the intersection and get cos(θ) = 3/4.
I do it again. Same answer. OK, Let's just do the integration then. For some reason I do the integration in exact form, check it on the calculator and it's a little bit wrong. My face must be a bright red at this point from increased blood flow. Turns out I had just missed a factor of two in one of the many fractions. Easy fix.
OK, a good half an hour to check questions. One of my critical values doesn't make both sides of the inequality equal, Oh no... Do it again and it turns out I made quite a serious slip the first time around.
By this time I'm having a full blown panic attack. At least some of the questions were self checking, like the tan(x) series and the De Moivre's. I do the p, r, q first order question by separation of variables and it give me a slightly different answer, didn't take me too long to figure why.
Anyways... enough excitement for a lifetime. At least I managed the A* I need with a few minutes to spare.

This is very reassuring and refreshing! For some reason I got the impression that mathmos in a level maths exams would breeze through without a hitch so thank you for sharing and well done

I think I've ended up with 69/75 . I lost two marks for using x instead of theta in 4b- hoping they'll just count that as a misread-, another two marks on 4b for forgetting to find C (i.e. I left it as a general solution), and another two on 8b for a small slip when subbing in limits.
Would this get me 90 UMS in FP2?

I didn't know that
In any case, my point being no one should be expecting 63-64 for an A* in this paper.

Though then again, you simply can't predict how the country has performed. TSR makes up just a percentage of those who took the exam.

For all we know it could be 62 for an A*. Or even 70 for an A*, again

There's a subtle difference, I suppose. The method of difference question didn't phase me, and the double IBP didn't bother me either. But I can make arithmetical and algebraical slips just like anyone else.

Thanks. I did C1,C2,D1,D2,M1,FP1 last year and am doing C3,C4,S1,M2,S2,FP2 this year. Currently I have FP1,M1 and D2 as part of my AS Further Maths so they could swap D2 with FP2 correct?

So solve for the intersection and get cos(θ) = 3/4.
I do it again. Same answer. OK, Let's just do the integration then.

My heart rate increases to some phenomenal level.

What do people predict the grade boundaries will be?