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Andy

@andypmaths

A Level Maths tutor. Founder of thealevelmathstutor.co.uk

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Latest posts by Andy @andypmaths

Thanks. Ideally I'm looking for how much progress y14 resit student make on their original grade. I imagine the data exists at exam board level, but I doubt it's ever been released.

09.03.2026 13:29 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Does anyone know of any national level stats related to how students perform in A Level Maths resits compared to their original grade? #ALevelMaths

06.03.2026 19:59 ๐Ÿ‘ 3 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Interesting data, but dlightly misleading in the context it was used in that slide. I suspect the lower end would look very different if students who dropped out before the exams were included. Especially when that slide implies they are discussing who to admit on the course.

02.03.2026 14:44 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

But what you perceive as an arm and a leg may just be a comfortable montly payment for millions of people. Leasing means you simply need to have a decent montly cash flow. And what's the point in owning a car that will only depreciate in value.

10.07.2025 15:34 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

But they're not eye wateringly expensive if you lease them.

10.07.2025 08:57 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I would recommend investigating Miro's Education Plan. It certainly used to be free if you can prove you're a teacher (and I think it still is). You could create each student a board if you wanted to.

It's a good piece of software - all my tutoring team use it.

09.07.2025 22:56 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

4. Writing the conditional probability formula with P(A|B) as the subject

5. Adding in the PMCC CVs that they obviously forgot the first time round

Note: I don't actually think they'll do these things - that would be too sensible

2/2

09.07.2025 06:33 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

1. Getting rid of that stupid dot in the binomial formula that looks like a decimal point.

2. Writing the quotient rule in terms of u and v

3. Putting in the formula for independent events

1/2

09.07.2025 06:33 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Interesting. Can you find out how this calculator evaluates tan(2)?

20.06.2025 16:30 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Normal way to make modified papers:

1. Select all.
2. Change font size.

2025 way:
1. Select all.
2. Change font size.
3. Save paper 1.doc as paper2.doc
4. Claim that's what you meant to do.

17.06.2025 13:27 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I also find using equating coefficients for polynomial division allows me to make links with other topics that require equating coefficients, like rsin(x+alpha).

17.06.2025 13:08 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I teach students to equate coefficients. Mostly in their head for more able students. In my experience, the reason the majority teach long division is because that's the way they were shown at school.

17.06.2025 13:06 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Not as far as I am aware. In fact I'd say it's inefficient as it contains redundant steps which you can avoid if you set it up similar to partial fractions and equate coefficients.

17.06.2025 13:03 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Unfortunately, it requires a login.

10.06.2025 08:45 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I tutor around 30 hours a week across all 4 exam boards, so have a bit of knowledge of the differences between specs. I also have access to a comprehensive, searchable questions by topic database of all past paper questions.

10.06.2025 07:55 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I'm going for "Questions on stuff that hasn't been on paper 1 papers".

08.06.2025 16:45 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

The Numworks is a lot better than the CG50. The CG50 is a bit like polynomial long division - everyone recommends it because it's all they know, but it's actually a bit naff compared to the alternatives.

01.06.2025 00:01 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Incidentally, the example above is called a point of undulation. I find that the graph of the second derivate (purple in this graph) nicely shows how the second derivative can be zero without a change of sign.

31.05.2025 23:57 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

If it's Edexcel or OCR it will be PAYE

07.05.2025 19:14 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Are we sure this isn't just correlation, rather than causation? Given that students who take further maths are generally much stronger mathematicians to start with, couldn't an equally valid conclusion be "if you want to be good at Maths A level, be good at Maths GCSE"?

04.05.2025 20:50 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

The original implication seems to be that it is unfair that the plasterer should be earning more than the supply teacher. I am putting forward an argument that there are various factors that in my opinion do justify it.

If this is not the case, I am not sure why it is an 'interesting comparison'.

16.03.2025 22:02 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

It's different because the supply teacher just writes their name on a list and then gets offered work. The plasterer has to advertise, get his name out there and if he doesn't do a quality job it hurts his chances in the future.

I think some people underestimate how hard it is being self-employed.

16.03.2025 21:37 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Your plasterer likely has to supply his own tools, has his own insurance, has all the risks associated with being self employed, has to aquire all his own leads, has to go out to quote for jobs he might not get and isn't being handed work on a plate. Seems reasonable that he's charging ยฃ250 to me.

16.03.2025 15:35 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

As a side note, the fact that you can edit this value is also a huge advantage with the CG50 when calculating critical regions for hypothesis tests, especially when using the right tail.

14.03.2025 12:47 ๐Ÿ‘ 4 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Rob is correct. Some bright spark at Casio thought it would be a good idea to confuse students all over the world by truncating. Use OPTN -> Edit (F1) while the value is highlighted to see a more precise value.

14.03.2025 12:46 ๐Ÿ‘ 4 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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OCR people have to use this. I do not like it because I can't draw a man in a cave and say the curve is concave.

27.02.2025 17:57 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I suppose that's true. But then they end up using the 'other one' for literally every new specification exam question from every exam board.

I find it easier to just tell students to ignore it.

23.02.2025 16:15 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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I'd say it's about as useful as this:

23.02.2025 12:22 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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I'm a big fan of 'blobs' for things like this (and various other topics, like chain rule).

14.02.2025 19:14 ๐Ÿ‘ 3 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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As others have said, it seems to be a hangover from when tables were used.

Edexcel thankfully seem to have given up on using Z unnecessarily now in mark schemes. In the images here you can see they were clinging onto it in 2018 (1st MS), but by 2021 they'd finally let go (2nd MS).

26.01.2025 22:03 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0