The countdown begins! Thanks @drbennison.bsky.social

Done

Surely the simple solution was to have a replacement paper covering the same topics as the original (obviously the actual questions can be completely different) - I hope lessons will be learnt from this.

Both groups seem to have been disadvantaged - 99.8% weren't tested on the whole breadth of the syllabus, 0.02% will never know if their grade boundaries are comparable to the majority.

I think I read somewhere that about 70000 students sit Edexcel A level Maths - if this is right then 0.2% is only 140 students. Is 140 students a larger enough cohort size to set reliable grade boundaries???

Assuming they don’t want to admit there was a leak AGAIN!

And how can grade boundaries be set effectively for such a small cohort?

Thank you @drbennison.bsky.social , @ecrmaths.bsky.social, @jrub.bsky.social for all the revision lists, warm up grids and practice papers you have provided over the last few weeks. They are greatly appreciated by me and especially by my students.

Everybody sitting the same paper is the key point here. I hope he can put this to one side for a few days and smash paper 3.

No problem - I've just done Paper 3. I think there may be a mistake on Qu 10 as I can't get an answer of that form - but I did do it very quickly and with a tired brain so might be my error. I think Qu 11 is a bit scary!

Even if his paper was 'nicer/better/easier' he has still suffered discrimination and a small cohort could lead to unfair grade boundaries. I hope you get some answers.

No need to apologise- you've every right to be concerned and to demand answers. I think the modified paper your son completed was actually more like what he'd have been expecting and together with paper 1 covered a greater breadth of the pure content (and was probably originally meant for everyone).

Thank you once again - my students have found these really useful

Thank you for doing so - it is important we find out what has happened. As a tutor rather than a teacher I don't have the same access to emails as you so it has been really useful to see that my original gut feeling about 'something fishy' going on was true.

Surely any sensible exam board would set a contingency/replacement paper to cover the same topics but just with different questions - paper 1 and 2 have not tested the specification thoroughly this year and even if some pure is tested in paper 3 this still seems ridiculous.

Please, if you do Edexcel A-Level Maths push them to explain what on earth happened last week.

Why were there two different paper 2s sat?

The modified (large font etc) Paper was much better suited to the series, why did so few students get to sit that paper?

#MathsToday #AlevelMaths #UKMathsChat

🤣

This made me chuckle!

That seems logical. I understand they may have had to change to the reserve paper if there was a leak but why not just admit that? And why not change the modified papers too? I’m wondering if we’ll get a bit more clarity after all 3 papers are complete?

I’m with you on this - do they think we are stupid. Or perhaps they are stupid? You can’t possibly set reliable grade boundaries on just those doing modified papers

From all the comments I’ve seen it was a replacement paper with modified papers still the original - hopefully Edexcel might confirm this soon to stop all the speculation which only worries students.

Thank you once again

Thanks again Tom - these are so helpful.
I think there may be a couple of mistakes on Paper 2B - I've commented on the blog site

Thank you for sharing

I was taught 'All Stations To Crewe' too but I did live nearby! I think its a better way to remember than CAST as at least you are starting in the 1st quadrant. Perhaps we need a new acronym for those not near Crewe???

I prefer graphs but happy for them to use CAST as long as they understand why it works

The two I saw that you had fixed were Qu 15 said mass 8kg rather than mkg.
Qu 16 had incorrect vectors.

Yes that's the right way round

No worries, happy to help - I was about to message yesterday with errata in Paper 2A but when I checked back you'd already changed it!

A Level Maths: Edexcel, AQA, OCR
AS Further: AQA
A Level Further: AQA (M & D), Edexcel (M & S)