The Edexcel FP2 (22/06/12 - PM) and FP3 (25/06/12 - PM) Revision Thread

I know that revising 2 months before an exam is usually considered a strange concept but for those of us who have started, i thought this would be a good place to share difficult problems before consulting the wider mathematical tsr community.

Past Paper Material:

http://mathsjoint.webs.com/ -> Make a free account and go on resources. They have everything.

Solution Banks:

Original post by raheem94

If anybody needs the solution banks of FP2 and FP3, below are the links to download them.

FP2: http://www.mediafire.com/?cv0uck5d5l1d6nf
FP3: http://www.mediafire.com/?jsfhxjj3sf3oddd

If you want to use them on internet explorer 9, then you might like to watch this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J6kxOnFyDM&lc=vCQVPl8AKbkZ_RxzkPahVASmbBzcpGgCCBcbzMXjuLk&feature=inbox

Spec:

http://www.edexcel.com/migrationdocuments/GCE%20New%20GCE/UA024850%20GCE%20in%20Mathematics%20issue%202%20180510.pdf

2011 Exam Thread:

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1650716

Exam Dates:

FP2: Friday 22 June PM

FP3: Monday 25 June AM

Grade Boundaries:

FP2:

Session	100'	90'	80'	70'	60'	50'	40'
Jun-09	74	66	58	50	42	34	26
Jun-10	74	67	60	53	46	39	33
Jun-11	74	68	62	55	48	41	35

FP3:

FP3 Solutions, June 2012:

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showpost.php?p=38346767&postcount=1851

Session	100'	90'	80'	70'	60'	50'	40'
Jun-09	62	56	50	44	38	32	26
Jun-10	74	68	62	55	48	41	34
Jun-11	74	67	60	53	46	40	34

This integral is nice:

\displaystyle \int_{0}^{3}x^2\sinh^{-1}(x)

Spoiler

(edited 11 years ago)

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1

Zhy

Will start revision for this after M4 exam is over... one half-term should be enough to go over the content. S4 and FP2 are on the same day, as are FP3 and M5. :frown:

Reply 2

Dreamweaver

Original post by Zhy

Will start revision for this after M4 exam is over... one half-term should be enough to go over the content. S4 and FP2 are on the same day, as are FP3 and M5. :frown:

Yeah that's pretty nasty. I feel for my friend who has S4, FP2 and Bio unit 5 on the same day lol.

Reply 3

Zhy

Original post by Dreamweaver

Yeah that's pretty nasty. I feel for my friend who has S4, FP2 and Bio unit 5 on the same day lol.

Thankfully there is a weekend in-between S4+FP2 and FP3+M5!

How do they deal with clashes at your school, do they let him have a break? 3 exams on the same day is terrible...

Reply 4

Dreamweaver

Original post by Zhy

Thankfully there is a weekend in-between S4+FP2 and FP3+M5!

How do they deal with clashes at your school, do they let him have a break? 3 exams on the same day is terrible...

I think you're not allowed to do more than 9 hours of exams per day. And the people that have clashes are supervised the whole day and do the papers in a different order to everyone else. It's really annoying :/

How ready are you for the exams? I'm exam ready for FP2 but FP3 needs another week or two. Not looking forward to the matrices bit.

Reply 5

Zhy

Original post by Dreamweaver

Lol, our class just started FP3. They're so ****ed.

Do you get to choose the order you do the clashes in?

I'm personally ready for FP2/FP3 although my class is moving so slowly. I'm more worried about the May exams though, D2 is on my mind the most.

Reply 6

Venomilys

I have to say, FP2 looks pretty good. I only scored 74% in my Maclaurin/taylor/DE's test with no revision but now looking back at the test it looks so much easier after a little bit of revision

Also I'm mistified as to why most people generally find FP2 harder than FP3. FP3 has vectors/matrices :s-smilie:

Original post by Groat

Vectors, lines and planes. :unimpressed:

I feel your pain,

Reply 7

Dreamweaver

Original post by Zhy

No we're just given an order and told to deal with it lol.

Yeah i have D1 on the 18th. I'm leaving about 2 revision days for it. Not looking forward to the exam :/

FP2 is easy apart from complex number transformations. I'm struggling with coordinate systems chapter in FP3. The concepts are easy and straightforward but the questions can be insane. Everyone else is nice.

Reply 8

Dreamweaver

Original post by Groat

Vectors, lines and planes. :unimpressed:

Original post by Ilyas

I feel your pain,

Exactly the same here. Got 58/75 in a test with no revision and now i'm getting close to max marks after revision. The only tricky questions are complex transformations. Finding limits in polar graphs also has the potential to be hard.

Don't worry about vectors and matrices. They aren't that bad. I found it tough at the beginning but once you understand the concept it's a simple case of plugging numbers into a formula. the questions are always the same with very few twists. But yeah i'm not a fan of linear algebra. Reminds me of decision :/

Reply 9

scherzi

Just realised we haven't started matrices and Taylor/Maclaurin :colonhash:

Original post by Zhy

Will start revision for this after M4 exam is over... one half-term should be enough to go over the content. S4 and FP2 are on the same day, as are FP3 and M5. :frown:

How long did it take you to cover M4 and M5 (self-taught right)? Haven't even finished M3 :sigh:

Reply 10

Zhy

Original post by scherzi

Just realised we haven't started matrices and Taylor/Maclaurin :colonhash:

How long did it take you to cover M4 and M5 (self-taught right)? Haven't even finished M3 :sigh:

M4 took one weekend, M5 I did ages ago but I forgot it again so I'll go over it during the next half-term, after the M4 exam. It is not difficult, I seem to remember.

Reply 11

Dreamweaver

Original post by Zhy

M4 took one weekend, M5 I did ages ago but I forgot it again so I'll go over it during the next half-term, after the M4 exam. It is not difficult, I seem to remember.

How hard is M5 compared to M3/M4? I personally found M3 harder than M4. SHM :/

Reply 12

Zhy

Original post by Dreamweaver

Trust me, D1 is SO easy. I was worrying about it too but I just did my first past paper (Jan 2009) and it was unbelievably straightforward. The only hard part is just getting all the marks... just look at how the mark scheme awards them and you'll be fine. It's just drawing stuff to be honest.

Also, we are at an advantage because the boundaries for D1 are always lower in June. :biggrin:

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 13

Zhy

Original post by Dreamweaver

How hard is M5 compared to M3/M4? I personally found M3 harder than M4. SHM :/

I found M5 about the same as M4. M4 is perhaps a little tougher. Relative motion is really annoying... spend lots of time on it, do lots of questions from the textbook. M5 is more fun; the first two chapters are easy, then it gets a bit harder when they bring in moments of inertia and parallel/perpendicular axis theorems but it's nothing to be afraid of. We've got plenty of time. Just spend one weekend on it.

Reply 14

tiny hobbit

Original post by Dreamweaver

How hard is M5 compared to M3/M4? I personally found M3 harder than M4. SHM :/

In the exam, it's always the questions about rotational motion that people mess up on, i.e. the moments of inertia stuff.

Make sure that you understand when you use conservation of energy and when you use angular momentum.

Reply 15

Dreamweaver

Original post by Zhy

Yeah i hate D1 with a passion. It's not maths tbh. I mean, how can re-arranging numbers in ascending order be a topic in an A-level subject? :confused:

That's something i'de expect to learn in reception.

Reply 16

Dreamweaver

Original post by Zhy

Original post by tiny hobbit

I'm not doing the exam as i'm not sitting the full three further maths A levels but i was interested to know how M5 compares. I've heard it's pretty nasty. Thanks for the insight though. Sounds interesting.

Reply 17

Dreamweaver

Original post by Groat

Have you got an example of a hard question?

The review questions in the edexcel FP2 textbook are decent, especially the later ones.. Also, the SArif paper questions can be hard. Here's an example of a question i found difficult:

47_Rev_Ex_1_Q47.jpg36.1KB

Reply 18

raheem94

Original post by Dreamweaver

The review questions in the edexcel FP2 textbook are decent, especially the later ones.. Also, the SArif paper questions can be hard. Here's an example of a question i found difficult:

Can edexcel FP3 be done in 10 days?
Considering i pay full attention to it on those 10 days, i won't revise any other unit during that time. I am aiming for full marks.

I usually don't do past papers, i only do all questions from the book. I have done all question from the FP2 edexcel modular text book, including the review exercises, can i get above 90 without doing past papers?
I think that past papers usually contain a lot easier questions than the book, so is it worth to do them?
I was only planning to do a couple of FP2 papers a day before the exam.

And any idea how many days will it take to complete S2.

NB: I have to self-study the units.

Reply 19

Dreamweaver

Original post by raheem94

It can be done but i would strongly advise against it. The reasons for this are as follows:

1) FP3 is a large module. Some of the content is fairly straightforward and other parts ar more challenging. But the fact remains that there is a large amount to cover. You have to remember lots of formulas that aren't in the booklet and given the time frame, you might be taking a risk if you want full marks.

2) The integration can be tricky. Hyperbolic functions have similar rules to normal trigonometric functions but there are very subtle twists that can catch you out if you don't memorise them.

3) The last two chapters (vectors and matrices) are one of the harder ones to self teach although after you learn it it's a simple mater of plugging in numbers into an equation.

I've only done 3 FP2 papers after doing both reviews and i got close to max marks on all of them. I think your plan will be fine but make sure you do as many complex number questions as you can (from past papers). The edexcel exams are generally easy but try some solomons/sarifs as they are harder.

S2 is very easy - probably easier than S1. 4 days is more than enough for it. Make sure you practice hypothesis testing though. There are a few tricks.