AQA GCSE Maths Unit 1 Practice Paper FREE!

April 20, 2011 Leave a comment Go to comments

Longman’s new  AQA GCSE Maths series includes a really useful Assessment Pack. Covering AQA’s Linear and Modular specifications, the content includes:

  • Course entry tests
  • Chapters tests for the Longman Foundation Sets, Middle Sets and Higher Sets Student Books
  • Linear and Modular Practice Papers
  • Resit Papers for Linear and Modular

Ahead of the Unit 1 Higher exam next term (on 13 June), here’s a free Practice Paper for your students:

Click to download the paper as a PDF

And here is the Mark Scheme .  Let us know what you think – comment is also free!

Categories: Achieving Grade C, AO1, AO2, AO3, Collecting data, Data collection, Free resources, GCSE Maths 2010, Higher sets, Interpreting Data, Linear, Middle sets, Modular, Probability, Specification, Statistics, Uncategorized, Unit 1 Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
  1. peter@examstress
    May 2, 2011 at 3:37 pm
    Reply

    Both the practice paper and the mark scheme were very useful for revision. Thank you for this resource.

  2. tatiana
    May 6, 2011 at 12:54 pm
    Reply

    Question 1 of this practice is really confusing. If the coin is biased, then strictly speaking, we can say nothing about the probability of heads. If a student tries to guess what the examiners want, she/he may put 41/60 as an answer taking into account previous results of tossing the coin. Why should the student put 2/3 instead, as the marking scheme suggests? 41/60 is also close to 0.7. Why not 0.7 then?

    • penelb8
      May 10, 2011 at 8:05 am
      Reply

      Thanks for your query, Tatiana. I asked Glyn Payne to comment, and here’s what he came back with:

      “I would accept 2/3 or 41/60 or 0.7 for B1 in part a ii
      These answers are based on experimental probability and are all sensible.

      We can say something about the probability of heads on the coin … we can say that more trials are needed to get a better idea of the limit to which the probability will eventually tend, but the evidence suggests that it will certainly not be 0.5, hence the coin is biased.”

      Does this help?

  3. zilyyy
    June 12, 2011 at 12:17 pm
    Reply

    Thanks ……………….I’m sure it’s going to help

  4. syed
    June 12, 2011 at 2:16 pm
    Reply

    There are many things wrong with this papers. 1 of them is Q12. It asks for the probability to be given of them both passing.In the marking scheme it gives only method to work out the answer, when also you can work it out through getting the probability of them both failing the test both times, and then subtracting it from 1, to get the answer. Many students who used this method ended up getting the question wrong or getting no marks for their working out.

    • domholdsworth
      June 21, 2011 at 3:05 pm
      Reply

      Hi – Thanks for your comment and sorry for slow reply. The mark scheme states against question 12: “oe”. This is the standard abbreviation for “or equivalent”. This abbreviation is listed in the key at the top of the mark scheme. “oe” is examiners’ way of ackowledging that there is more than 1 method for answering the question and, therefore, equivalent methods also qualify for a mark.
      Please let us know of anything else you have spotted?
      DH

  5. kyoya
    July 11, 2011 at 6:08 pm
    Reply

    is this the 2010 paper that was just giving recently?i realy need it by tomorrow so does anyone know where i can find it thankyou arigato(thankyou japanese)

    • penelb8
      July 12, 2011 at 9:57 am
      Reply

      Hi Kyoya. Sorry, but no, this is not the June 2010 maths paper from AQA. It will be a couple of months at least before AQA will ‘release’ that paper. They need to announce the exam results and deal with any appeals before they make it public. You can track it through the AQA website: http://www.aqa.org.uk/resource-zone/maths/gcse-maths.php. Best wishes, Penelope

    • domholdsworth
      July 12, 2011 at 9:59 am
      Reply

      Hi – this paper is one that we (Longman) wrote to help teachers and students practice the new-style questions, it is not the official exam paper. To find any of those, you will need to go to the AQA website:
      http://aqamaths.aqa.org.uk/index.asp?CurrMenu=300
      DAH

  6. Stephen Lillie
    November 5, 2011 at 1:53 pm
    Reply

    This AQA link leads to a download page but you cannot download unless you are a teacher and a member of a teaching centre – frustrating. I am trying to get some papers on Unit 1 for my daughter to practice on. The Longmans Assessment pack appears to be very good but it is £147.00 and would have a great deal of material that she would not use.

    If anyone knows where we can get sample questions we would be very grateful. Thanks for the free sample Longman. Do you have any assessment materials for unit 1 that are not a full assessment pack?

    Stephen

    • penelb8
      November 10, 2011 at 4:32 pm
      Reply

      Hi Stephen
      AQA have the November 2010 and March 2011 papers publicly available for the new specification – see http://web.aqa.org.uk/admin/qp-ms_finder.php
      These include the Unit 1 papers (see the pdf files listed below the blurb about only being available to teachers.
      I hope this isn’t too late – the unit exams are very close, I think!
      All the best
      Penelope

      • Stephen Lillie
        November 10, 2011 at 8:53 pm

        Thanks Penelope – great that you replied with this info. She did the exam today! However I will follow up your lead in case she has to resit.

        We are now looking for Unit 2 and Unit 3 questions, so perhaps these are available on the same link. I will investigate your link thoroughly. Unit 2 and Unit 3 questions have not undergone so many changes I think.

        You are a star! Thanks ever so much.

        We really appreciate your time and trouble to reply.

        Stephen

      • penelb8
        November 11, 2011 at 8:49 am

        Fingers crossed for success, Stephen!

        My understanding of the new Unit 3 is that, because it will be first taken in summer 2012, the only source of ‘past paper’ right now are AQA’s sample papers that came out when the new specification was approved. See http://www.aqa.org.uk/resource-zone/maths/gcse-maths.php for these Unit 3 ‘specimen papers’.

        We include Unit 3 practice papers in our Longman resource – so watch this blog in the next few months for us posting one or two free as usual.

        All the best
        Penelope

      • Stephen Lillie
        November 11, 2011 at 1:20 pm

        Thanks Penny
        Thanks to you and Longmans and for this valuable link.
        Much appreciated. She came home with a smile so perhaps she will do okay. he really wants to do well in maths.

  7. Sindy
    March 4, 2012 at 2:26 pm
    Reply

    Thanks for this it really helped with my revision but could you tell me what the grade boundaries are please. thanks 🙂

    • penelb8
      March 22, 2012 at 1:22 pm
      Reply

      Hi Sindy
      This is a complex business, I’m afraid. All exam boards publish the grade boundaries for a particular exam only after the exam’s been awarded (taken, marked and all queries resolved). And the boundaries are, of course, set across all the Units that you have to take to make up the full GCSE. The boundaries will move (a little) with each award. Now no awards will be made for these new GCSEs until summer this year, so there are no ‘real’ boundaries available. But your teacher may have access to information direct from AQA for sample papers that are available to schools, which may include grade boundaries.
      All the best
      Penelope

  8. Emily
    November 2, 2012 at 4:55 pm
    Reply

    I understand it isnt an actual gcse paper, but what would the grade boundaries be?

    • penelb8
      November 9, 2012 at 4:42 pm
      Reply

      Good point, Emily. We don’t have the grade boundaries calculated for any of our papers. I’ll see whether we can make some approximations for you.

      All the best

      Penelope at Pearson

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