Worst maths GCSE paper ever

[Lukeje]

"Here are two equal halves of an equilateral triangles. They are the same. Why are they the same?"

Since the triangle is equilateral.

Surely it's because they are "equal halves"?

Edit: they're not the same; they would be converted by means of a mirror plane, which means they are enantiomeric (in two dimensions). In three dimensions they would be equivalent.

That would only be the case if the faces were different in some way. If the faces of the triangles are the same then you can do a rotation.

No; if you cut an equilateral triangle in half, you get two right-angled triangles which are mirror images of each other. The sides are all different lengths (a, a/2 and (3/4)[sup]1/2[/sup]a).

 

[nova18]

Just do A-level. No words, just advanced mathematics that can potentially melt your brain.

I noticed at GCSE (its been 3 years so I dont know whats different) but I noticed how fucking weird the names are in them. I remember a Science question about Polycarbonates and it was like:

"Ramjesh wishes to use a methanol based substance to treat a polycarbonate based surface, wheras Hildegarde wishes to use citric acid. Which of them will harm the surface? Give your reasons"

Now, the only reason I remember that question out of all of them, is because I have no idea why these 2 people have been named so ridiculously. I maintain to this day that it is the exam boards way of being politically correct.

Btw, if anyone is curious as to the answer: Ramjesh, methanol will react chemically with the polymers and damage them.

 

[Nimbus]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is this edexcel thing? Is the GCSE not a nationwide standardised exam?

 

[Southy]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is this edexcel thing? Is the GCSE not a nationwide standardised exam?

Edexcel is an exam board, a quite awful one.

I'm starting to hate Physics because of it.

 

[Danny Ocean]

Hold up!

I didn't get that question. Did you do maths 4 or are you doing foundation level or something?

Btw, if anyone is curious as to the answer: Ramjesh, methanol will react chemically with the polymers and damage them.

That would get you a big fat zero mark. Needs more detail. Lots more detail. Detail. Detail. Detail.

You weren't doing the IGCSE paper then. That had the evil question:
Make W the subject: A = 2(LW+WH+HL)
and i was doing it a year early. Reckon I scraped 80% though...

EDIT: I just saw the bit about multiple-choice response boxes. Having done past papers, they seem to have crept in over the past two years and yes, they are a bit pathetic.

Ahh, this was my paper. Did you get the answer to the last question, with the triangle?*
That was hard. I reckon I've scraped about 85%. I take an estimate at my mark in the last 10 minutes or so by adding up the ones I definitely got wrong. Added up to 11 marks, and then added some leeway.

*This was the question, maths people:

A triangle ABC.

AB is (x+6cm)
BC is (x+4cm)
AC is x
Angle BAC is 60[sup]o[/sup]

Calculate x.

I tried to pythagorise it but I kept on hitting a wall. The higher-setted guys said I was meant to use the cosine rule.

 

[megalomania]

"Here are two equal halves of an equilateral triangles. They are the same. Why are they the same?"

Since the triangle is equilateral.

Surely it's because they are "equal halves"?

Edit: they're not the same; they would be converted by means of a mirror plane, which means they are enantiomeric (in two dimensions). In three dimensions they would be equivalent.

That would only be the case if the faces were different in some way. If the faces of the triangles are the same then you can do a rotation.

No; if you cut an equilateral triangle in half, you get two right-angled triangles which are mirror images of each other. The sides are all different lengths (a, a/2 and (3/4)[sup]1/2[/sup]a).

You're not wrong that they are mirror images, but they are not enantiomeric. They would only be enantiomeric if the faces were different i.e front and back are different (like hands).

 

[Geamo]

Congruency people, Congruency.

My technique; write something that looks like it could be plausible, using "keywords"

 

[Nimbus]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is this edexcel thing? Is the GCSE not a nationwide standardised exam?

Edexcel is an exam board, a quite awful one.

I'm starting to hate Physics because of it.

And an exam board is... what? The people who correct the tests? Or something?

 

[J-Man]

And this year, they have questions that simply cannot be answered with human language. It was basically: "Here are two equal halves of an equilateral triangles. They are the same. Why are they the same?"


Another question was basically asking you to write out a questionnaire... no numbers involved, simply write out a question and some response boxes.

Did the triangle question relate to something about mathematical similarity?

And those questionnaires are incredibly easy. I think they're trying to make maths more practical and relevant to everyday work.

I talked to 3 people, who all breezed through it.

 

[freetogoodhome]

"Here are two equal halves of an equilateral triangles. They are the same. Why are they the same?"

Since the triangle is equilateral.

Surely it's because they are "equal halves"?

Well both imply the same thing lol. If you have an equilateral triangle if you cut it in half both halves must be equal.

If you cut anything in half both halves must be 'equal'.

@OP'er: ...but what does 'equal' mean in this context? The two triangles are not equivalent (one would be a mirror image of the other)... Is the question asking about area?

It asked us to prove that both of the triangles are congruent. I was tempted to circle 'equilateral' in the question and leave it at that.

 

[Southy]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is this edexcel thing? Is the GCSE not a nationwide standardised exam?

Edexcel is an exam board, a quite awful one.

I'm starting to hate Physics because of it.

And an exam board is... what? The people who correct the tests? Or something?

They're the one's that set out the courses and exams. The way the textbooks are produced e.g context or concept led for Physics. They are pretty much the ones that control the studying process.

 

[Sparrow]

You can get good marks from being Chinese?

Fuck! Thats another point for Korea...

Wait... what?

What does this have to do with Korea?

Shush, you'll ruin the magic. It's a setup!

 

[PAGEToap44]

It was largly a piss easy paper, but yeah, the triangles were congruent just because they were! And did anyone get the answer to the second last question? That was hard. I got one and one fifth for a) Probably wrong, just wanted to know if there was anyone clever enough to know what they were doing on that question.

 

[Tharwen]

For the people who say that their paper was different - there are three major exam boards: Edexcel, AQA, and OCR, and two tiers of paper: foundation and higher. You could have been doing any combination of these.

 

[TheDoctor455]

Well... with that triangle question... I think they were trying to get you to apply proof logic. Because, most of math isn't about adding/subtracting/multiplying/dividing numbers, it's about applying logical thought. As for the other questions, while I utterly despise math, I can understand why those questions would frustrate you: because they are totally fucking irrelevant. I like reading and writing A LOT... So I know what it's like to get a question that has absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter. For example, on a quiz on George Orwell's 1984, I noticed a few questions like "What would Freud say?" (we had, up to that point, not talked about, discussed or in any way learned anything about Freud, but I knew enough about him to get by), "What sound does yellow make?" (I wish I was fucking kidding), and "Analyze 1984 from Dante's perspective? (that's the Dante that wrote the famous poems about hell, not that idiot from Devil May Cry... again, Dante had not come up at any point in class, and we had never been asked to do research about him, but again, I knew enough about him to get by). Now I ask you, what the fuck do those questions have to do with George Orwell's 1984? Oh, and the essay question was: "You are a school-bell, what is your day like?" (again, I wish I was fucking kidding)

 

[JenXXXJen]

I just hate all Maths papers anyway. Example.

"John decided to count and measure all the earthworms in his back Garden, calculate the..."

I'm sorry, "John" needs to get a fucking girlfriend.

Oh god I've always thought that, for one of my mock exams I just gave up answered like that all the way through I remember last year one of the questions in the science exam began with, "Gary likes eating peanuts, what...". You could hear loads of people trying not to laugh at the same time.

I also did my maths exam today but my school uses AQA papers. Still, it did ask why a certain shape was a parallelogram, I know the answer was because the parallel sides are the same length and the opposite angles are equal but in all fairness... a shape is a shape because of its SHAPE.

Shit! So that was the answer?! I thought that, but then I was like, "No, it wouldn't be that, surely." So I just made up some crap about it's points being in the middle of the lines

 

[atol]

"Here are two equal halves of an equilateral triangles. They are the same. Why are they the same?"
Because you just said they are?