A*A* in maths + further maths A level - ask me anything

What mark did you get in maths, and what are your opinions on the ridiculous jump in Edexcel's maths grade boundaries this year?

what is your favorite prime number

I ended up getting 273, and I asked for my individual paper scores back, paper 1 was somehow my best. I personally had a feeling that boundaries were going to increase, as overall I thought these papers were a bit easier than past papers, but I feel like the jump itself is quite big from 2019. It was inevitable but not to this degree is all I can really say, but you can't really blame the exam boards. It was a certain percentile of people who were going to get an A*, and that's about it. It was just the overall performance of students.

What was your strategy when revising maths ? To clarify, did you practice a bit of maths everyday and if so what resources did you use ?

Did getting these grades come as a shock to you or did you anticipate it? (Specifically for further maths considering how difficult the papers were this year)

And what are your plans for the future?

Wow 273 is great, full marks were in sight for you! Yeah, I could tell the papers were easier this year but I was on board with everybody predicting the boundary for an A* at 220-230. I am so goddamn lucky to get 246 after I literally didn't answer the whole differentiation question at the end of paper 1 lol. Are you planning on tutoring kids maths to make some cash (bc I sure am)?

What were your thoughts on that damn series question in the core pure 1?

Maths, I'd expected an A*. Although I didn't revise normal maths content in year 13 (don't do this), I still expected an A*. For further maths, I was split between a high A and low A*, but ended up getting 30 above the A* boundary. I asked for my paper scores back from my school exam officer to see that I got 96% on core pure 2, which was funny. I found mechanics 1 and core pure 1 to be the most difficult, yet I somehow scored above 60 on both of them, but seeing that A* was still fairly suprising.

I'm doing MMath at University of Bath, would've loved to go to Warwick but we don't wanna get onto the topic of my third subject. Kinda screwed me, but Bath is still an amazing place for maths. Might see if I can go Warwick for my Msc though.

A lot of people complained about the matrices question too, but I loved that question

Regards to the series question, don't even get me started. I think I lost a majority of my marks on that one, can't remember how the parts were split up but I left that until the end. Now looking back at it, I wouldn't say it was hard, it was more of just knowing where to start your approach. Props to anyone who got high marks on that question though, it was probably the least answered question out of all the papers.

Great job, any sort of score like that can get you places for sure. I wouldn't call yourself lucky, you fully deserved success. I was thinking of tutoring but to be completely honest, I'm an extremely lazy individual. That's about it, but if I wasn't this lazy I would recommend tutoring whilst your at university too, just don't let it get in the way of your studies. Regards to the 220 - 230, I see how that would've been possible but I had more of a realistic approach rather to a lot of people on this platform who are saying low boundaries because they are coping.

I didn’t go through normal maths content much in year 13 either, except for a few days before the exams (which could have went very wrong). Congratulations on your amazing grades! 30 marks above the A* boundary is incredible, honestly I anticipated a B (or an A if lucky) after I had finished all 4 FM exams because of how bad I thought I had done but method marks seemed to have saved me somehow.

Maths at Bath is amazing and something you should be proud of! Did you take an admissions test for it?

I thought the matrices were much worse than the series question, but in hindsight I don't think the maths in CP1 was actually that bad - the exam just felt a lot more time pressured than normal.

The only part of the series question I know I definitely got wrong was the very last part, because I unthinkingly tried to evaluate the sum by using n = 12.5 or something similar.

I presume your overall mark in FM was well over 80% from the sounds of things?

I thought the matrices were much worse than the series question, but in hindsight I don't think the maths in CP1 was actually that bad - the exam just felt a lot more time pressured than normal.

The only part of the series question I know I definitely got wrong was the very last part, because I unthinkingly tried to evaluate the sum by using n = 12.5 or something similar.

I presume your overall mark in FM was well over 80% from the sounds of things?

1.





I'm kidding.