EDEXCEL MATHS PAPER 1 - GRADE BOUNDARY PETITION (10,000+ signatures)

My son sat the exam and he has studied really hard and was predicted an A. He walked out saying it was really hard and he could not do some of the questions. If you don't have a child sitting the exam you do not & can not really say the students need to toughen up!

Exactly. It's easy to say that it wasn't that bad but when you feel SO prepared and you feel like you know exactly what's gonna come up and you'll do well ... then you get the the second part and BANG, you get question where you're like :O :O. Honestly, it's such a slap in the face, you feel like you've failed everything.

Of course the grade boundaries will be lowered using the Gaussian distribution, but students just want to make their point. Edexcel need to realise that it's not OK to spring up a paper like that on us that we were NOT mentally prepared for. I think the petition is a really good idea. And for the person who said it's not fair on students who do well - I do pretty well in maths and what's not fair is the exam, not lowering the boundaries. Either way you'll do well, so there's nothing unfair about it.

*rant over*

Hey, you think it's a problem when that happens? Are students not expecting to get some questions that actually test their understanding in the Linear paper?

In my Level 1/2 Certificate papers 3H/4H, there were a couple of questions in both papers that I didn't 'expect' to have to do. However I understand maths, so after 10minutes of thinking about a question and writing some potential workings, I figured it out and solved the problem.
The whole point of maths is being able to understand it and apply it.

Just because some poor little students weren't taught that EXACT question in class does not mean the question was unjustifiable. Teachers can't teach students every single possible question, there are an infinite number of possible applications, and the teacher's job is to help the student understand the subject. If they simply aren't as capable a mathematician, then they won't be able to apply their knowledge. If they were, they would've been able to figure out that question with just a pinch of thought.
If they are capable enough and they came out not being able to answer it and ranting about it, then they clearly either a) aren't as capable as you thought or b) They gave up instantly and didn't persist, which is their fault.

I think it was a perfectly reasonable question, and it was one that tests which candidates actually understand the subject vs which ones just attempted to memorise the questions they'd practiced in class.

I get your point, but no one would be ranting if it really required just the 'pinch of a thought.' And of course if the more able students got it, then that would also be normal.

But the fact that the entire country was completely stumped by not only that question but a good half dozen of them is a little much. One or two weird questions, OK, but the whole second half of the paper confused the large majority of students. Most of the focus in the complaints were focused on Hannah's sweets as it was one that not even the smartest people in the year who do Ad Maths (year 13 maths) really understood.

Yes, people did solve it. But two or three days after the exam. That was not a question that you be solved in the time of the exam by the very large majority of the students. The students took it to the teachers and even they took a long time to figure it out. How were we supposed to do that under the strict time restrictions? And let's not forget that practically no one made the link between the sweets and the method. The teachers cannot teach everything - I agree, but I feel that the question should have given us more pointers on how to answer the question. 90% of students, no matter how 'capable', did not make the link. I think about it now, three days after the exam, and think 'Oh yeah, maybe I should have done it more like that' - but really, most people making the link three days after the exam is getting us nowhere.

The question was not A Level work, but it was, according to a lot of teachers, A Level standard and I still think it was unfair and threw a lot of people off.

And before you assume that I'm an 'uncapable' student, I was predicted a very high grade for my maths, but I guess that plan went down the drain.

I get your point, but no one would be ranting if it really required just the 'pinch of a thought.' And of course if the more able students got it, then that would also be normal.

But the fact that the entire country was completely stumped by not only that question but a good half dozen of them is a little much. One or two weird questions, OK, but the whole second half of the paper confused the large majority of students. Most of the focus in the complaints were focused on Hannah's sweets as it was one that not even the smartest people in the year who do Ad Maths (year 13 maths) really understood.

Yes, people did solve it. But two or three days after the exam. That was not a question that you be solved in the time of the exam by the very large majority of the students. The students took it to the teachers and even they took a long time to figure it out. How were we supposed to do that under the strict time restrictions? And let's not forget that practically no one made the link between the sweets and the method. The teachers cannot teach everything - I agree, but I feel that the question should have given us more pointers on how to answer the question. 90% of students, no matter how 'capable', did not make the link. I think about it now, three days after the exam, and think 'Oh yeah, maybe I should have done it more like that' - but really, most people making the link three days after the exam is getting us nowhere.

The question was not A Level work, but it was, according to a lot of teachers, A Level standard and I still think it was unfair and threw a lot of people off.

And before you assume that I'm an 'uncapable' student, I was predicted a very high grade for my maths, but I guess that plan went down the drain.

The sweets question was not a level standard. If you thought about it was easy to figure out. It was just probability and the link could have been made through application. It was not even close to a level standard.

Most of the focus in the complaints were focused on Hannah's sweets as it was one that not even the smartest people in the year who do Ad Maths (year 13 maths) really understood.

Yes, people did solve it. But two or three days after the exam. That was not a question that you be solved in the time of the exam by the very large majority of the students. The students took it to the teachers and even they took a long time to figure it out. How were we supposed to do that under the strict time restrictions? And let's not forget that practically no one made the link between the sweets and the method.

Well, let's just hope Hannah doesn't eat any more sweets tomorrow morning.

It took me 30 seconds to do part a.
If they had given the total number of sweets a number rather than the letter 'n', virtually no-one would have complained about the question, with that being the case I don't know how A level students/teachers could struggle with it. You use the exact method you would use to solve any other probability question just using an n instead of a number, I do not understand what's hard about it...

It took me 30 seconds to do part a.
If they had given the total number of sweets a number rather than the letter 'n', virtually no-one would have complained about the question, with that being the case I don't know how A level students/teachers could struggle with it. You use the exact method you would use to solve any other probability question just using an n instead of a number, I do not understand what's hard about it...

The question was not A Level work, but it was, according to a lot of teachers, A Level standard and I still think it was unfair and threw a lot of people off.

And before you assume that I'm an 'uncapable' student, I was predicted a very high grade for my maths, but I guess that plan went down the drain.

Can we all just stop and remember that Hannah's sweets, part (a) and (b) are worth 6 marks. Part (b) is solving the quadratic for 'n' and that makes up 3 of the 6 marks. This question is being used as a scapegoat by students and the media to show how truly awful exams are!?! 3 marks probably won't even change your grade. People need to learn how marks are made uniform and then grades are awarded before they start complaining. Grade boundaries automatically 'lower themselves' (so to speak) if people perform badly!!