A level revision questions

onomatopoeia99

missbiggles1 wrote: »

This shows what happens to bright students when education stops being about challenge and academic rigour and becomes about mark grabbing teaching to the test.

Can't happen in Maths, you can either solve the problem set or you can't. There's nowhere to hide.

"Teaching to the test" would be teaching the syllabus.

Kynthia

I'd too suggest older past exams but also to look for revision books on those subjects. Many will have question written in the style of past papers but will be different.

Rosemary7391

Which exam board is it for maths? I'm familiar with edexcel, but maths is maths! If she wants something to stretch her, I really like the old P1-6 books which are pure maths (so C1-4 and FP1-3 if she was doing further maths). They cover the same sorts of things, but I find they get into the depth of it all a bit more and they're a bit more rigorous. It'll be some work to find out which bits she should look at but it'll broaden her knowledge of maths which hopefully would give her more confidence. I use them for extra material if I'm tutoring A Level maths. The older mechanics books have the same sort of thing I think but not sure.

susancs

I don't think there is much you can do with Maths and Chemistry AS and A2 level revision as there is always a correct answer and past paper questions are often repeated in a similar format, plus really are the best way to revise. However the offical AS mock paper your DD had earlier in the year would not be an inflated score due to her having done it already, as this paper would have been from last year and not available online, except to school teachers at that stage.

When my DD did her A2 levels last year a friend of hers could not sit A2 exams due to broken bones and his grade was based on his mock result and predicted grades (Luckily he had good mock results) so it is considered a "real" exam test.

Revision doing past exam papers and marking them is boring, but well worth doing. My DD also did skype study sessions with classmates ,plus met up in the library with others. Sometimes explaining it to someone else helped her revise or realise what she needed to revise more and also helped someone else revise. She did the 3 Sciences and English. Three of her friends who are now in Oxbridge Universities (physics and maths) always tutored other A level students as part of their A level revision.

pinkshoes

Jagraf wrote: »

I've suggested she tells the teachers to write some questions for her - has anyone got any other ideas?

As a teacher, writing exam style questions is really hard, as you then need to have some sort of mark scheme and it is very difficult to then say what grade it is comparable to.

If she is getting excellent grades from past papers in exam conditions, then that is a good sign!! I set past exam Qs as homeworks, and I am amazed how many pupils cannot manage them in an exam!

I would recommend looking at the various end of topic questions in the text books, or purchasing some sort of question/answer book, and reading around the subject as much as possible.

Also try past paper questions from other exam boards.

missbiggles1

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

Can't happen in Maths, you can either solve the problem set or you can't. There's nowhere to hide.

"Teaching to the test" would be teaching the syllabus.

The syllabus and nothing but the syllabus - my point exactly.

Rosemary7391

missbiggles1 wrote: »

The syllabus and nothing but the syllabus - my point exactly.

There's also a difference between doing maths as a computer would do it, and doing it with a bit of understanding/flair behind it. I think this difference starts to show at A level, and certainly beyond.

Jagraf

Thank you all. She's doing edexcel maths not sure with Chem. She goes through the whole syllabus and uses other on line material and mind map (hpuse is covered in them) and then sits and works through papers. She feels it's not real if she knows the answers (!) so I've told her to do some more papers under exam conditions at home (when she has time) along with other exam boards - although I think she does this already. she wants to tell the teacher she's done it already.

We have parents evening next week.

Rosemary7391

Rosemary7391 wrote: »

Which exam board is it for maths? I'm familiar with edexcel, but maths is maths! If she wants something to stretch her, I really like the old P1-6 books which are pure maths (so C1-4 and FP1-3 if she was doing further maths). They cover the same sorts of things, but I find they get into the depth of it all a bit more and they're a bit more rigorous. It'll be some work to find out which bits she should look at but it'll broaden her knowledge of maths which hopefully would give her more confidence. I use them for extra material if I'm tutoring A Level maths. The older mechanics books have the same sort of thing I think but not sure.

Just checked at home - they're the books labelled 'Ideal for the 2000 specifications', Pure Mathematics 1-6, published by Heinemann. They're very cheap on Amazon, pretty much just the cost of the postage! If you want the contents lists so your daughter can work out which ones she needs just PM me. They have really extensive exercises - for example, an exercise in factorising polynomials in the first book has 100 questions with answers in the back, and the mid book review exercise has 111 questions !

Jagraf

Rosemary7391 wrote: »

Just checked at home - they're the books labelled 'Ideal for the 2000 specifications', Pure Mathematics 1-6, published by Heinemann. They're very cheap on Amazon, pretty much just the cost of the postage! If you want the contents lists so your daughter can work out which ones she needs just PM me. They have really extensive exercises - for example, an exercise in factorising polynomials in the first book has 100 questions with answers in the back, and the mid book review exercise has 111 questions !

Thank you so much I will have a look.