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CIE AS Maths

I am pretty confident now practicing questions from past papers but not with time
How can I manage my time in both papers?
Paper 1 - 1hr 45min and Paper 6 - 1hr 15min.
Please help me out so that I can practice accordingly.
Original post by kundanad
I am pretty confident now practicing questions from past papers but not with time
How can I manage my time in both papers?
Paper 1 - 1hr 45min and Paper 6 - 1hr 15min.
Please help me out so that I can practice accordingly.


Sorry to see that you have not had a response to this.

I did Edexcel for maths so I can only give general advice:

Work out whether there is a minutes per mark ratio, e.g. 90 minutes for exam and 75 marks means that for every 5 marks you spend 6 minutes on a question, or I guess roughly for a 1-2 mark question you should only spend 1-2 minutes on.

If you're then nowhere near completing the question then move on and come back to it if you have time - this had paid off for me in a few exams because I come back with a different perspective and see something I didn't before.

And of course, practicing tricky questions help you to see the answer more quickly , or the approach, and then put it on paper. Because you can waste a lot of time thinking about it and not getting anywhere, but as your ability increases you get better at it.
Reply 2
Original post by Kevin De Bruyne
Sorry to see that you have not had a response to this.

I did Edexcel for maths so I can only give general advice:

Work out whether there is a minutes per mark ratio, e.g. 90 minutes for exam and 75 marks means that for every 5 marks you spend 6 minutes on a question, or I guess roughly for a 1-2 mark question you should only spend 1-2 minutes on.

If you're then nowhere near completing the question then move on and come back to it if you have time - this had paid off for me in a few exams because I come back with a different perspective and see something I didn't before.

And of course, practicing tricky questions help you to see the answer more quickly , or the approach, and then put it on paper. Because you can waste a lot of time thinking about it and not getting anywhere, but as your ability increases you get better at it.

No problem. I was about give a rep to your reply but it couln't because i already did.
Thank you so much for your advice. As my exams are near, I am doing past papers about last 10 years and many as I can with time as well to really practice well. As you said I am focusing more on tricky questions and take care about easy ones. It would be great if you could help me out on solving some questions I posted. Those are bit tricky and I am needing help.
Reply 3
Also we have to write everything in the answer paper which contains questions as well.
Can we draw with a pencil to illustrate what we are doing for example like a triangle on the given diagram while finding area of it? Would that be fine or we will lose marks? Also in questions like in trigonometry, we can draw the trig graph as required since there is enough space? Will it be considered while marking?
I think those would be great to do so to make the examiner clear.
Original post by kundanad
No problem. I was about give a rep to your reply but it couln't because i already did.
Thank you so much for your advice. As my exams are near, I am doing past papers about last 10 years and many as I can with time as well to really practice well. As you said I am focusing more on tricky questions and take care about easy ones. It would be great if you could help me out on solving some questions I posted. Those are bit tricky and I am needing help.


Feel free to post questions in the Maths forum- tag me if you wish but someone else will most likely get there before me so no need


Original post by kundanad
Also we have to write everything in the answer paper which contains questions as well.
Can we draw with a pencil to illustrate what we are doing for example like a triangle on the given diagram while finding area of it? Would that be fine or we will lose marks? Also in questions like in trigonometry, we can draw the trig graph as required since there is enough space? Will it be considered while marking?
I think those would be great to do so to make the examiner clear.


I can only guess about how marking works but I doubt that would be a problem, to have workings over the page and on diagrams.. but only guessing

The MS should tell you what they think about graphs I guess. Unless it says something about disallowing graphical methods (although I think that's something to do with calculators..)

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