Edexcel Maths AEA 2023

Anyone doing AEA for maths this year? How we feeling? I found no current thread about this so I made this post '

(Original post by TypicalNerd)I did the AEA last year (it was horrible compared to the past papers lol) and managed a distinction.

As the AEA only assesses content from the normal A level maths course (excluding that stupid large data set), you can get away with using past A level maths papers in your revision, as well as the few AEA past papers available (accessible here: https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/edexcel-a-levels/advanced-extension-award-mathematics-2018.html). I’d probably suggest looking at MAT and STEP papers if you want some more reflective revision material than standard A level papers and if you run out of AEA papers.

did your paper have a stats or a mechanics question. im tryna recognise a trend. did it have multiple or? and what type of question was it

The 2022 paper had mechanics on it, but it was more a sort of ‘pure’ question with vectors forming a hexagon if memory serves (bear in mind it’s nearly been a whole year since I last saw the paper). I believe there was a second question which involved the motion of two aeroplanes or something, but I don’t remember it having much actual mechanics on it.

There doesn’t seem to be much of a trend with whether stats or mechanics will come up. You may be lucky enough to be assessed on both.

thanks a lot. also is doing madas maths MP2 S-Z papers averaging around 85% enough for AEA, i wanted to start on SP papers aswell but the solutions arent available, im not sure if the SP papers are too overkill though. ill also do all the aea papers up to the exam date

How did everyone find it?

I found it really hard. Question 1 with the cos I forgot to make it negative so lost marks there. Question 2 with the primes I think my proof may have lost a few marks for whatever reason. Question 3 with the trapezium was a terrible question and I didn't get far at all so really lost a lot of marks there. Question 4 was my favourite and I think I got all the marks there. Question 5 was really cool, I liked it a lot but had 1 too many solutions for n on the final part. Question 6 was really good as well but I didn't understand how to get the two marks for finding N and explaining why it was less than the r value. Question 7 I didn't spend much time on so only did the first part and tried to grab a couple marks in the later parts. Overall I think I lost probably 40-50 marks so think I will come out with around 50 which I really am just hoping is enough for a distinction.

I found it difficult. 2019 paper was way easier. Lost all marks on the statistics questions, and probably most marks on the last question.
Spent the last 30 minutes chilling, because I couldn’t do anything else.
Probably got about 40/100. Hope this will be enough for merit.

How did you find it?

(Note that I didn’t sit the exam, so I have no idea what came up)

AEA was quite difficult this year. The paper had harder questions than most past papers. Had no idea how to do the stats question and messed up here and there. Estimating 40-60 marks overall. Maybe 70 if I didn't make a silly mistake with the parametric question and got lucky with some questions.

It was a very difficult paper this year.
Lot's of obscure topics.
I was disappointed that there was no proper integration questions or mechanics questions.
I think I will get 50ish
my prediction for the distinction mark is 45
Which in my opinion is too low
How did everyone else find the paper?

AEA was quite difficult this year. The paper had harder questions than most past papers. Had no idea how to do the stats question and messed up here and there. Estimating 40-60 marks overall. Maybe 70 if I didn't make a silly mistake with the parametric question and got lucky with some questions.

What did you get for the parametric question. I got something like 25[pi(1/8 + sqrt3/9) + 1/2]. Jeez 70 marks would be crazy well done. Good luck.

From the sound of it, everyone here found it hard. Perhaps it was even as hard as last year’s paper or god forbid, even worse.

In which case, lower grade boundaries than usual are quite a distinct possibility.

But well done to the lot of you for giving it a shot regardless. Let us hope you can all enjoy a nice long summer holiday now that all your A levels are done.

I did paper 2022 and I think it was far easier, when I did it at home I got a very high distinction. Obviously that was at home so my score is definitely higher than had I done it in real life. But the paper went a bit like this for your knowledge.
Q1: Cos half angles question and asks for cos(101.25)
Q2: Proofs question, asks for some counter examples to a proof and then asks for a full proof of why there are infinitely many primes.
Q3: A numerical methods question using the trapezium rule but was really difficult when it started involving limits to 0 and infinity. Q4: Parametric question with some circle geometry and parametric integration.
Q5: A probability question with Venn diagrams. Mainly to do with simultaneous equations as it had like 5 unknowns and then some number theory at the end for some integer solutions to a problem.
Q6: A big question to do with the volume of this mushroom (hemisphere + fulcrum) and then it was all to do with differentiation.
Q7: A recursive sequence problem to do with how periodic the sequence can be.

Compared with 2022, I think it was harder...