Maths Ocr 2016 C1

Do you remember what the expression was for the first question?

The grade boundary for an A must be laughable this year, guessing around 52/72? Considering that the paper was hardly anything like we've seen before (don't argue with me on this, I've seen every other one back to '05), and in 2011 it was as low as 54/72 for an easy exam.... What were the examiners thinking? Cruel.


Posted from TSR Mobile

Questions 1-7, and Q9 were similar to many many questions from the past papers.
Q8 related to differentiation from first principles for the first 4 marks. It can be answered without recourse to first principles.The last 3 marks asked you to find equation of normal to curve at a given point. Very standard question.
Q10 circle. First 9 marks really straightforward and very similar to many past questions. The next part (iii) was for 3 marks, and there a re a few past paper questions similar to this. The final part was a little different to anything before (refreshing!) and was worth only 2 marks.
Q11 would have caught many out, but only involved creating and solving a simultaneous equation in x and a. It takes about 5 lines of algebra to solve, so not the most challenging question. There have been many harder questions in the past, and several quite similar.

So, please don't make statements along the lines of "it's hardly anything like what we've seen before" about this paper. And even if it had been different, what's the argument to support the view that it must be similar year on year? As long as the questions test the specification required and set out, why must they always be similar to historic ones?

Well 53 for an A is about what we predicted