Transition to university

Elliott Fletcher on Which coin is more likely to be biased? 8 years, 5 months ago

Gave some feedback: Needs to be tested

Chris Graham on Decimals to fractions 8 years, 5 months ago

Gave some feedback: Ready to use

Chris Graham commented on Decimals to fractions 8 years, 5 months ago

I fixed the spacing around the = in b)(ii). Otherwise I think this is good.

Hannah Aldous on Using the Quadratic Formula to Solve Equations of the Form $ax^2 +bx+c=0$ 8 years, 5 months ago

Gave some feedback: Needs to be tested

Lauren Richards on Addition and subtraction of fractions 8 years, 5 months ago

Gave some feedback: Needs to be tested

Chris Graham commented on Using the Quadratic Formula to Solve Equations of the Form $ax^2 +bx+c=0$ 8 years, 5 months ago

I have changed the wording of the statement slightly and also removed "require trailing zeros" in part (a), which was too harsh.

I've removed (i) from part (a) as there is only one sub-part.

Otherwise looks good. However, if this is the first time we meet the quadratic formula (I'm guessing from the way the statement is worded) then I would like to have it available to the student, perhaps as a step to part (a)?

Chris Graham on Using the Quadratic Formula to Solve Equations of the Form $ax^2 +bx+c=0$ 8 years, 5 months ago

Gave some feedback: Has some problems

Stanislav Duris commented on Basic arithmetic operations: addition and subtraction 8 years, 5 months ago

I split the parts into 3 separate questions with subparts. I am not sure how to name these so it is still obvious they are supposed to follow one another so I numbered them for now.

Chris Graham on Finding the highest common factor of two numbers 8 years, 5 months ago

Gave some feedback: Has some problems

Chris Graham commented on Finding the highest common factor of two numbers 8 years, 5 months ago

I think I would avoid 1 as an option altogether in part (b). Whether 1 is prime or not will trip up a lot of students but is unlikely to be of importance in their studies; I think it's more important to test their knowledge of whether a number is or isn't composite, rather than catch them out on (arguably) a technicality.  

RE your problem in the comment below: h/6 is less than 6 ~50% of the time, so you could either re-think your variables, or use sort to arrange into the correct order, for example set up a new list of numbers containing the factors... sort([1,2,3,h/6,6...]).

There's a mix of singular and plural in the statement. I think I would write "A number that can be...".

"divided evenly by whole numbers" would be better as "divided without remainder..." to avoid confusion with even numbers.

Part (c) in the advice does not provide much additional informtation. I guess you haven't included all of the factors as it would be a pain! That's fine I think. 

Stanislav Duris on Arithmetic operations: Inequalities 8 years, 5 months ago

Gave some feedback: Ready to use

Stanislav Duris on Determining the resulting sign of an arithmetic operation 8 years, 5 months ago

Gave some feedback: Ready to use

Lauren Richards on Decimals to fractions 8 years, 5 months ago

Gave some feedback: Needs to be tested

Stanislav Duris on Weight of a scoop in two ice cream parlours 8 years, 5 months ago

Gave some feedback: Has some problems

Christian Lawson-Perfect on Identifying different types of sequences 8 years, 5 months ago

Gave some feedback: Has some problems

Christian Lawson-Perfect on Identifying different types of sequences 8 years, 5 months ago

Saved a checkpoint:

Advice for part a could show each sequence with the common differences underneath, so it's easy to see which are linear. That's how I'd work it out.

Similarly with common ratios for part b.

For part c, I just use the fact that the difference between consecutive triangle numbers increases by 1 at each step. A drawing of the first few triangle numbers would help show this. While you can use the formula, it's not obvious, and you'd look at common differences first.

In part d, rather than using the triangle sequence in particular, I'd give a formula of the form $\frac{an(n+b)}{c}$ (what constraints are there on randomising this?) - you want to see that the student's comfortable with using a formula to get the nth term of a sequence without working out all the previous terms.

Part e relies on noticing that the sequences are the squares and cubes, respectively. How would you work this out? It's not enough to just state it in the advice. You might look at common differences, then make a guess that it's $n^2$ or $n^3$. The advice should show this experimental thinking - is it really $n^2$? How do we check? Draw a table of $n$ against $a_n$?

Christian Lawson-Perfect on Solving linear simultaneous equations by elimination 8 years, 5 months ago

Gave some feedback: Has some problems