#EdexcelMaths

[aviator]

I've tried looking for the question and from what I've gathered it tells you hannah has n sweets in which 6 of them are orange. The probability of picking two orange sweets one after the other is 1/3.

So if you define the probability of picking an orange sweet as 6/n and then the probability of picking another orange sweet (without replacement) as 5/(n-1) then multiplying these together will equal 1/3.

6/n x 5/(n-1) = 1/3
30/n(n-1) = 1/3
30 = 1/3 x n(n-1)
90 = n(n-1)
n^2 - n - 90 = 0

Is this what part (a) was about? Then solving to get n=10?

I can see why the first part is pretty tricky for a GCSE paper.

edit: also sorry if it's hard to follow the working, maths looks pretty shit without proper formatting

Yeah, it was part a that was the most difficult, I screwed up the second part because I ran out of time... 69 is usually correct right? Other than the cone and cylinder question, the paper was fine. Looking back I wonder what the fuck was going through my mind on some questions...

According to my teachers, if you know what topics were in the non-calc you can predict the topics in the calc paper. Is this true? If so how

Not necessarily, exam boards sometimes pull all kind of goodness. Almost copying a question exactly from a previous year or completely skipping out topics. I'm expecting sine/cosine rules, trigonometry, a simultaneous equation (probably quadratic), maybe an algebraic fraction, trial and improvement etc.

Revising strategically rarely works, best to just learn the content and pray the exam board aren't dickheads. For the science papers some of my mates guessed what the 6 mark question would be by looking at past ones... let's just say they were well off.