Category Mathematical Miscellany

A compilation of mathematical goodies!

Nov 26 2023

Mathematical Miscellany #90

A mathematics resources compilation:

Dan Shuster has been curating a collection of low floor high ceiling math tasks that he is calling “180 Days of Math Tasks”, which can be found here. The original source can be found at the bottom of each slide.

I do like this new PhET simulation – Center and Variability covering these topics:

Topics

  • Median
  • Mean
  • Central Tendency
  • Boxplot
  • Variability
  • MAD
  • Range

For more on PhET Sims – see this page.

1st Class Maths is frequently mentioned on this blog; the home page points us to many recent updates, including past paper topic analyses for Edexcel and AQA. Reading the notes at the foot of the table, we see that the Past Series Appearance Percentage analysis is for exams up to and including June 23.

1st Class Maths – Edexcel Past Paper Topic Analysis
1st Class Maths – AQA Past Paper Topic Analysis

Remember that 1st Class Maths also has a YouTube Channel where you will find all the video explanations, and we see from the updates that a video and exam questions for upper and lower bounds have recently been added for Edexcel and AQA; these resources can all be accessed from the topic lists illustrated here.

I have seen several lovely new GeoGebra resources recently, including Dividing Whole Numbers by Fractions Word Problems.

GeoGebra – Dividing Whole Numbers by Fractions Word Problems

You can check further GeoGebra Mathematics resources on their new webpage.

GeoGebra Math Resources
Edexcel GeoGebra Resources

On my GeoGebra page you can find many additional GeoGebra resources, including resources for GCSE and A Level Maths and Further Maths.

The wonderful Open Middle resources are regularly updated; scroll down to the footer to see the most recent additions, including Linear and Quadratic system illustrated here which reminds me of another problem I like; I was distracted one morning by this problem on creating a system of two linear equations.

Open Middle
Sep 10 2023

Mathematical Miscellany #89

A Mathematics resources compilation:

From the brilliant 1st Class Maths, 114 Edexcel Foundation Exam Questions covering the full specification with video solutions to all questions.

Christine Norledge has created a searchable database of all Edexcel GCSE maths past paper questions from June 2017. Christine intends to gradually add shadow questions for each paper and topic and will update the database with these links once the resources are available.

Remember that you can search for questions on Mr Neill’s brilliant resource for Edexcel, AQA and OCR, or use ExamQ from Mr Watts:

Mr Neill

From Mr Neill, a brilliant resource, all Edexcel, AQA and OCR GCSE maths questions categorised by topic with answers from June 2017 to Nov 2021 (9-1), available all on pdf, PowerPoint or Promethean. And to add Mr Neill’s latest update: “WEBSITE UPDATE – JUNE 2022 ADDED. Thanks for all the support, over 70,000 visits. Added a few extra surprises under miscellaneous. Take a look at the QR coded past papers. A real favourite with my students.”

On ExamQ from Mr Watts you can quickly search for Edexcel Maths GCSE and A-Level exam questions. You can choose from GCSE Foundation or Higher, AS or A level, you can also select by exam series, paper, area and topic.

The interface is very clear indeed, easily display the questions or mark schemes.

A September update from the legend that is John Corbett.

September Update

  • 1015 new practice questions created
  • 50+ hours of video solutions
  • 27 new practice question booklets
  • 84 practice question booklets updated

The quick video goes through some of the work that John has been working on recently and his aim to finish updating the Practice Questions and the video solutions this academic year.

I was delighted to see in the comments that one of John Corbett’s next projects is A Level.

Remember that GCSE Level 2 Further Maths is also available on Corbett Maths.

King’s Maths School publish a weekly maths challenge designed to intrigue students aged 13-16 who are interested in mathematics.

Emily Rae – Video of the Week

From Emily Rae, a lovely resource – Video of the week for A Level students, available on Emily’s padlet – KS5 Maths – Enrichment and Extras; two Word documents are available, one with two years’ worth of video links each with a short description to introduce each clip and a second document with the links only.

Aug 20 2023

Mathematical Miscellany #87

Mrs D Maths – Knowledge Organisers

Mrs D Maths has been writing Knowledge Organisers for A Level Maths, ( free on TES Resources). These are included in the Knowledge Organisers collection which includes resources for KS3, KS4 and KS5 (ages 11 – 18). Very recently, she has written an organiser for Year 2 Functions and Graphs.

These organisers are included in the Knowledge Organisers collection which includes resources for KS3, KS4 and KS5 (ages 11 – 18).

PixiMath – A Level Baseline Intervention Booklet

Looking ahead to return to school for UK schools, from Pixi Maths see the A Level baseline assessment. This very useful set of resources includes solutions as well as the baseline test, a question-level analysis and also an intervention booklet and solutions.

OCR, Bridging the Gap – A Student Guide

Staying with the Transition from GCSE to A Level, this post, GCSE to A Level Transition includes a resource collection for students starting A Level Maths, and supporting their Year 12 work.

I was very interested to see this article from NCETM on Three calculations to encourage and support fluency. Note the acknowledgement; the examples are from Gwen Ineson and Sunita Babbar, from Brunel University. See a related chapter, part of a wider publication, by Gwen Ineson and Sunita Babbar in Mental maths: just about what we do in our heads?

From the GeoGrebra resource team, a resource to interpret meanings of different rates of change across a graph that represents the water level in a hot tub.

For some more watery demonstrations, see Pouring and Filling.

See the page Exam Results 2023 for results statistics and grade boundaries from the UK exam boards.

FFT Education Datalab, check their blog for the latest information. See A-Level and other level 3 results 2023: The main trends in grades and entries.

Graham Cumming on Twitter has been crunching the numbers since the A Level results were published.

Graham Cumming
Jul 16 2023

Mathematical Miscellany #86

A mathematics resources compilation:

Webmaths – Year 12 “3 a day”

On Webmaths, new for A Level Maths, “3 a day” for Year 12 Maths; these resources look excellent; solutions will follow. You can also find Year 13 3 a day.

Rob Southern – Year 12 revision sheets

Staying with excellent resources for Year 12, Rob Southern has revision sheets for Year 12.

Still with A Level, remember that AMSP’s Mathematics Topic Plans cover the whole of the AS/A level Mathematics specifications. These comprehensive documents include links to easy-to-use resources, including technology-based teaching files and student tasks, suggested questions and prompts to promote mathematical thinking and reasoning. and identification of common student errors

There are many excellent resources chosen in these topic plans, for example, we have Ab-surd! from Underground Mathematics.

Pearson’s short ‘how-to’ 28 Key Topics videos for GCSE are designed to support post 16 students preparing for November exams. We can countdown to the November exams on Mathsbot!

From the Calculator Guide, another very helpful video for the new Casio fx-991CW Classwiz Calculator on Calculating & Solving Functions. See Casio ClassWiz 2023 for further information on the new Casio calculators.

Coordinating mathematical success: the mathematics subject report,, a new subject report into maths teaching has been published by Ofsted, See NCETM’s news item including a one minute video summarising the main findings.

Jun 1 2023

Mathematical Miscellany #84

Menu

From Naikermaths, A Level ‘Best Guess’ Papers and Mark Schemes for Papers 1 and 2. It’s great to see that very clear disclaimer on the front page. These look like great practice papers.

To quote Naikermaths:

……..nobody can predict a paper. However, this paper is created based on high frequency of topics and trend from previous years. Some topics or similar skills from this paper may appear in Paper 2 and vice versa, or may not.

Naikermaths

I have added this to my post A Level Maths and Further Maths 2023.

Dr Tom Bennison

For AQA Level 2 Further Maths, Dr Tom Bennison has now published a practice paper, see his post, Exams 2023 Resources.

I have added Tom’s paper to this AQA Level 2 Further Maths collection.

On June 1st, it’s an ideal day to recommend Wayne Chadburn’s great calendars – A little bit of maths each day. He writes these calendars to provide regular, varied practice; three versions of each monthly calendar are available, Higher, Foundation Plus, and Foundation; answers are provided.

Wayne Chadburn
Tick Tock Maths – IGCSE Calculus

From Tick Tock Maths, it’s great to see new IGCSE resources, particularly for topics not on GCSE. See the top menu – Calculus (IGCSE). This resource has been added to my IGCSE collection. This also includes the recent paper 2 practice questions from Addvance Maths.

For IGCSE – See AddvanceMaths.com

A reminder that MEI’s Calculator Crunch is later this month. The Calculator Crunch resources are great for Year 6 – Year 7 transition.

Calculator Crunch 2022