Last month Edexcel released their second set of specimen papers and in between other things when I’ve wanted to switch off I’ve been doing some maths and putting together worked solutions. I’ve put the solutions (along with previous solutions and copies of all the SAMs and specimens published to date) in the extras tab online and they’re also available in this DROPBOX LINK

Interestingly there are a couple of exemplar questions on the latest specimen papers that showcase some of the newer topics at GCSE – I was also reminded this evening about the “linked pair pilot” papers providing good examples of some of these newer topics (they’re now downloaded and I’ll have something to work on when my brain is fizzing!).

I like this areas under graph question and whilst its a new topic I do think it’s quite “procedural” … as long as students remember how to find the area of a trapezium!

Then there is also this estimating gradient question which, again I thought was OK as it is in my opinion also quite procedural. It will however cause issues (a bit like line of best fits!) where students lines will be slightly different and you get that “Miss I’ve got xxx”, “Miss I get yyy”.

The one I didn’t get at first was this one, as the idea of relating ratio to functions/algebra is long in the depths of my memory! Solved it though!