Functional Maths Level-2 Question?

Spender£

Having lost my C&G level-2 certificate from years ago i decided to do my maths level-2 again however it is now FS Maths by Pearson. Due to lockdown this course is being done online and the class is showing us long division and fractions etc etc, now i'm a bit older i'm struggling in particular with the fact the tutor is telling me i must use their methods rather than my own (despite the fact i get most of the answers right) because the test is marked for working out rather than the correct answer, i do a lot of this stuff on paper in a weird way which tends to work for me however they say the examiner won't understand it.
Has anybody got any tips in regards to this new FS version of level-2 as after 10 years it might have changed, in the old version the questions in the exam from what i can remember were things such as Q) Fred buys a coat from the shop costing £467 but he gets a 12% discount, how much will the coat cost with the discount etc etc etc!!!!

Comms69

You know you can order duplicate certificates? - not that I've ever had to show mine, ever. In 13 years of working, pretty much straight out of uni. 

But as for your example question - what are they asking you to show? i'd simply divide by 100 and multiple by 88. 

Spender£

Comms69 said:

You know you can order duplicate certificates? - not that I've ever had to show mine, ever. In 13 years of working, pretty much straight out of uni. 

But as for your example question - what are they asking you to show? i'd simply divide by 100 and multiple by 88. 

Yeah i lost both Maths and English and they were able to find and re-issue my English one but they can't find the Maths one so i'm checking other bodies such as OCR in case it was with them but i would of rather re-done the English one again if i had to choose. I tend to works things out on paper by counting back but they want me to do this in a way they can understand which is fair enough i suppose.

Comms69

Spender£ said:

Comms69 said:

You know you can order duplicate certificates? - not that I've ever had to show mine, ever. In 13 years of working, pretty much straight out of uni. 

But as for your example question - what are they asking you to show? i'd simply divide by 100 and multiple by 88. 

Yeah i lost both Maths and English and they were able to find and re-issue my English one but they can't find the Maths one so i'm checking other bodies such as OCR in case it was with them but i would of rather re-done the English one again if i had to choose. I tend to works things out on paper by counting back but they want me to do this in a way they can understand which is fair enough i suppose.

I honestly cant comment on the exams, or their requirements. 

In anycase has anyone actually asked you for these certificates. You have the qualification, regardless of if you have a piece of paper or not. Just seems like a potential waste of money

Spender£

Comms69 said:

Spender£ said:

Comms69 said:

You know you can order duplicate certificates? - not that I've ever had to show mine, ever. In 13 years of working, pretty much straight out of uni. 

But as for your example question - what are they asking you to show? i'd simply divide by 100 and multiple by 88. 

Yeah i lost both Maths and English and they were able to find and re-issue my English one but they can't find the Maths one so i'm checking other bodies such as OCR in case it was with them but i would of rather re-done the English one again if i had to choose. I tend to works things out on paper by counting back but they want me to do this in a way they can understand which is fair enough i suppose.

I honestly cant comment on the exams, or their requirements. 

In anycase has anyone actually asked you for these certificates. You have the qualification, regardless of if you have a piece of paper or not. Just seems like a potential waste of money

Yes, i am now being asked for Level-A-C in Numeracy when making new applications for work in mainly the civil service although having been in those jobs and applied for them before, i was never really asked if i had Grade A-C GCSE or equivalent until now, and it is in the Job Spec of many of the roles i have applied, i don't get many ask for English which i would of thought was more Important. I'm only bothering with this in order to fill this gap and tick a box really and i managed to get a free fully funded version in my area so i thought i would take advantage if i don't need to pay for it this time.

MinuteNoodles

Spender£ said:

Due to lockdown this course is being done online and the class is showing us long division and fractions etc etc, now i'm a bit older i'm struggling in particular with the fact the tutor is telling me i must use their methods rather than my own (despite the fact i get most of the answers right) because the test is marked for working out rather than the correct answer, i do a lot of this stuff on paper in a weird way which tends to work for me however they say the examiner won't understand it.
Has anybody got any tips in regards to this new FS version of level-2 as after 10 years it might have changed, in the old version the questions in the exam from what i can remember were things such as Q) Fred buys a coat from the shop costing £467 but he gets a 12% discount, how much will the coat cost with the discount etc etc etc!!!!

Tell me about it. My son struggled like hell with long division so I showed him the way I was taught at O level which is completely different and he instantly got it. However as my teacher brother pointed out, it did him a disservice because even if he got the answer right he'd get marked down on methodology even though the way I had been taught was the way it had been taught for nearly a century. Absolute utter madness and it annoys the hell out of me that we have people leaving school functionally innumerate because the education system is hell bent on trying the latest trends in teaching.

elsien

MinuteNoodles said:

Spender£ said:

Due to lockdown this course is being done online and the class is showing us long division and fractions etc etc, now i'm a bit older i'm struggling in particular with the fact the tutor is telling me i must use their methods rather than my own (despite the fact i get most of the answers right) because the test is marked for working out rather than the correct answer, i do a lot of this stuff on paper in a weird way which tends to work for me however they say the examiner won't understand it.
Has anybody got any tips in regards to this new FS version of level-2 as after 10 years it might have changed, in the old version the questions in the exam from what i can remember were things such as Q) Fred buys a coat from the shop costing £467 but he gets a 12% discount, how much will the coat cost with the discount etc etc etc!!!!

Tell me about it. My son struggled like hell with long division so I showed him the way I was taught at O level which is completely different and he instantly got it. However as my teacher brother pointed out, it did him a disservice because even if he got the answer right he'd get marked down on methodology even though the way I had been taught was the way it had been taught for nearly a century. Absolute utter madness and it annoys the hell out of me that we have people leaving school functionally innumerate because the education system is hell bent on trying the latest trends in teaching.

That's just silly. 
As long as you are able to show your workings out and they are logical, mathematically correct and can be followed, it shouldn't make any difference which method you use,
I cam still remember moving schools and their long division was "paying back." I decided my method made far more sense and stuck to it. Still got an A.  

theoretica

I agree that they should accept any method that works - but perhaps you do need a bit of clarity of thinking or layout to improve your way from 'a weird way which tends to work for me' to 'a clear alternative method that works'.

amandacat

I have both tutored and marked FS Maths in the past. You do get most of your marks for your workings out but there is no prescribed way to work out your answers and your tutor should not insist you do it their way. As long as your workings out demonstrate how you got to your answer then this is fine. 

Doshwaster

Surely one of the points of maths is that there is not a single "right way" of doing anything but if you work through the problem logically and explain what you are doing then you should get to the same correct answer whatever your approach. Methods taught in schools for operations such as long division and multiplication have changed over the years. 

Manxman_in_exile

Did people do long division at O-level?  When I did mine in 1974 we were doing calculus.  (interestingly, my brother - who was 15 years older than me - said he didn't do integration and differentiation until A-level.  And somebody recently told me that their child hadn't done calculus at all before going to university - which I refused to believe).

I think the problem with long division is that if I did it the way I was taught - which was at primary school - then any examiner more than 20 or 30 years younger than me would find it hard to follow, probably never having seen that method.  Also, from the point of view of marking an exam, the examiners don't want to be faffing around having to work their own way through an unfamiliar methodology.

OP - why not accept it as a learning opportunity and learn something new?

(I've just tried some sample long divisions and I've decided that I've forgotten most of what I learned over 50 years ago.  I'd be happy to learn a new method).