7 Maths GCSE Questions

I have a maths degree and got 6 out of 7. I'm convinced this question:

Gbamojx.png


...is complete bollards. On what planet does 4*(3/5) - 2*(1/3) make 34/15?

And then it occurred to me that the question actually meant "four and three fifths minus two and one third". So yeah. No mathematician ever writes numbers that way. In fact, I've never seen anyone write numbers that way. BBC: tripping up real mathematicians by being annoyingly ambiguous.
 
I have a maths degree and got 6 out of 7. I'm convinced this question:

...is complete bollards. On what planet does 4*(3/5) - 2*(1/3) make 34/15?

And then it occurred to me that the question actually meant "four and three fifths minus two and one third". So yeah. No mathematician ever writes numbers that way. In fact, I've never seen anyone write numbers that way. BBC: tripping up real mathematicians by being annoyingly ambiguous.

I spent a long time wondering what on earth the 2 4/15 meant.

Here's another one for you, just in case you're old enough to remember the good old days!


9/10 on that one, I assumed that you would get the £50 deposit back. In real life this would have been made clear in the T&Cs :mad:

If those questions are representative, then all that has happened is the questions are now worded in simpler English.
 
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6 out of 7.

Got the voltage question wrong lol.

eh? I must have had different questions to you, quite interesting.
7/7 as expected
I thought GCSE maths would have had some harder questions than that, but the lines blur between gcse maths, additional maths, a level maths and further maths.
 
The problem I have is I cannot do simple calculations without using a calculator, those I can do take a long time such as percentages. I always have to work out 1% just by moving the decimal place along first then I can times that by 17.5 to get 17.5%.

I couldn't do the trig questions without a calculator though (unless I did an accurate drawing).:(
 
I have a maths degree and got 6 out of 7. I'm convinced this question:

Gbamojx.png


...is complete bollards. On what planet does 4*(3/5) - 2*(1/3) make 34/15?

And then it occurred to me that the question actually meant "four and three fifths minus two and one third". So yeah. No mathematician ever writes numbers that way. In fact, I've never seen anyone write numbers that way. BBC: tripping up real mathematicians by being annoyingly ambiguous.

It's not the BBC it's how I was taught at school to do 'mixed fractions'. And I 100% agree with you that it's awful, the way it's written makes it look like it's 4 times 3/5 rather than what it means as 4 + 3/5.
 
Here's another one for you, just in case you're old enough to remember the good old days!

Such BS. Why include simultaneous equations in O-levels and not GCSE questions? A lot of the others are also solving equations which make up a large bulk of the GCSE syllabus.

It's not the BBC it's how I was taught at school to do 'mixed fractions'. And I 100% agree with you that it's awful, the way it's written makes it look like it's 4 times 3/5 rather than what it means as 4 + 3/5.

Without a dot or brackets I would always interpret it as a mixed fraction.

How else would you write a mixed fraction?

mixfract.JPG
 
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7/7 Got A* for GCSE Maths in '96 tho :p

I then went on to flunk my Maths A-level hah. Damn you mechanics! Aced stats and pure maths but really, really sucked at anything with angles in it ;)
 
Such BS. Why include simultaneous equations in O-levels and not GCSE questions? A lot of the others are also solving equations which make up a large bulk of the GCSE syllabus.



Without a dot or brackets I would always interpret it as a mixed fraction.

How else would you write a mixed fraction?

mixfract.JPG

But that mixed fraction doesn't look like the BBC ones. BBC used teh same sized font for the large number which is stupid. If you had read the wordy bit you should have understood what the BBC were asking though.
 
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