Exams & Revision
External Assessment
This section of the website offers some guidance on the nature of the external assessment for this course and some ideas about how to prepare students for it. This along with some activities for revision! First we check the details and then what follows explains what other pages you can find in this section. Navigate through the pages using the menu on the left. With the recent change in syllabus there is a little yet to be learned about the exam papers and I expect this section of the site to grow as the syllabus beds in.
Assessment details
Here is a simple outline of the details and how they all fit together.
The assessment of the course is split in to 3 distinct parts that are weighted as follows
- Paper 1, 90 minutes- 40%
- Paper 2, 90 minutes - 40%
- Internal Assessment - 20%
The two exam papers are typically taken on successive days with paper 1 in the afternoon and paper 2 in the morning of the following day.
A Graphical Display Calculator (GDC) is allowed for both papers.
Students are provided with a copy of the information booklet.
Paper 1 consists of 15 short response questions worth six marks each and can draw on any area of the syllabus. Responses are written on the exam paper.
Paper 2 consists on 6 longer response questions worth a total of 90 marks and can draw on any area of the syllabus. Responses are written on separate lined paper and graph paper as required. No responses should not be written on the question paper.
Students are expected to show their calculator screens with RAM cleared on entry to the exam as well as demonstrating that they only have allowed applications. *Note for TI users, clearing the RAM returns the calculator to working in radians and turns diagnostics off. Both of these need to be put right as soon as students enter the room. The latter stops the calculator showing all the required results for linear regression.
Students are given 5 minutes reading time before the 90 minutes start. This should be used well!
Follow links to see more on the following,
Common Errors
Common errors are both surprising and then not! There are bound to be things that are that much more difficult or that much more likely to be left out, but at the same time, if we know about them then...
Exam Advice
This page is a simple list of things that you can do and prepare for relating to exam technique. Small things that can make a big difference. We should all know that there are more things to life than...
Mock Exam
'A paper students have not seen before 'This page offers two whole exam papers that students will not have seen before. As I teacher I find I can never have enough practice of exam style questions and...
Paper 1
A bullet point description of paper 1 The following outlines how accuracy is examined to the best of my understanding. A new ruling on accuracy was brought into play in November 2011. A principle reason...
Paper 2
A bullet point description of paper 2 The following outlines how accuracy is examined to the best of my understanding. A new ruling on accuracy was brought into play in November 2011. A principle reason...
Past Paper Review
This section is intended as place to keep records of the different exams that have been produced for the syllabus in which the first exams were taken in May 2014. Reviewing these exams is a really important...
Resources for Revision
Obviously this is a crucial part of any exam program and over the year I have tried lots of different ideas. On this page you will find ideas about when and how revision can be offered and some recources...
Top Marks
This is a page with advice about what it takes to hit the top grades - 6s and 7s in the Maths Studies exams. Everyone has different starting points and different goals, but this page is specifically about...
Common errors
This is a good list to be familiar with so you can easily help students to try and avoid these mistakes!
Paper 1
This page gives the run down on paper one and ways to approach it.
Paper 2
This page gives the run down on paper two and ways to approach it.
Resources for revision
This page offers some ideas and resources to help in the final stages of revising and preparing for an exam!