Andrew's IB Maths Vault

Exam writers are nice people. Apart from me, of course. Quite often you’re receiving hints and nudges to keep you in the right direction. A couple times in section A and almost every question in section B. Since IB is a lil annoying with copyright I’ll take screenshots from A-level exams, but of course IB also does this.   Answers already given In some sub-questions you’ll see the correct answer already printed, coming after “Show that”. This question is taken from Edexcel A-level Maths October 2021.   Because the answer is given, you must make your method extremely clear to the marker. If they have a slightest suspicion you fudge your way to the answer they may choose to withhold the last mark (or the only mark in this case).   I’m now at the stage that I could kinda fudge my way to show a printed result – but that’s after a ton of practice and a vague idea of what I’m doing. You’re more than encouraged to use the printed answer to guide your work, bu...

 9:00 a.m. Outside the exam room.   Your heart wants to explode, beating 200 times a minute.   You did the most revision you could do. You set 69 alarms to make sure you wouldn’t rush to school. You’ve prayed 420 times in the last hour, hoping to get some support from the universe.   Ah yes, the teacher’s finally here. Opening the classroom doors so you can all settle down. The scary sound of the paper knife ripping the paper folder opening. Your fate depends on the very papers in there. Five minutes later, you have them in front of you, quickly flipping through to look for missing pages, but slowly enough so you could attempt to peak at the actual questions. Looks like the budget this year is a little tight. The papers are a little thinner than usual. There are smudges on every other page. “You could’ve done better, smh”   Being bored, you start reading the cover page for the 101th time. 2 hours, 110 marks.   Let’s get to the poin...