Maths Non-Calculator Exam

[Michelle_Smith]

I have a maths non-calculator exam tomorrow. What usually comes up on them, if anyone took one in the past what came up also any teachers what is likely to come up? Thanks

[SMHarman]

Your teachers have not shown you a mock paper or briefed you on this?

[Bex]

Originally Posted by SMHarman

Your teachers have not shown you a mock paper or briefed you on this?

when i did gcse's (i'm guessing it's gcse's) we did numerous mock papers in advance of the real exam and our teachers told us what was likely to come up

[Dave Stones]

non-calculator exams tend to be of a much more algebraic nature than the other ones, and require you use logic/your brain...

example question from an OCR higher paper though, just cos im nice...

Find the value of 24 multiplied by the reciprocal of 24. Show clear working to support your answer.

the answer is obviously 1, as 24/1 x 1/24 cancels out to 1...



__________________

kinda makes me with i was going GCSEs again... i wish my maths papers were like this nowadays

[Tricky]

Working out %ages are always crop up on these papers...
I.e. 10% of 300.23 or if you have 30.45 what %age of the 100 do you have (usually with numbers a little more comlpex)
Fraction conversion 1/4 = 0.25 etc. crops up also or show 3/15 of 2304 as a decimal
Don't think they'll have progressed to Decimal, Binary, Octal number conversion?

edit: Great point from Davestones - SHOW your workings - We used to get marks for this even though overall answer might be wrong!

You may also get questions like: 2 trains leave at the same time one travelling at x mph the other at y, train x makes 10 stops and train y makes 8 train x arrived 10 minutes before train y how long was each stop on average.

[Dave Stones]

Originally Posted by Tricky

Working out %ages are always crop up on these papers...
I.e. 10% of 300.23 or if you have 30.45 what %age of the 100 do you have (usually with numbers a little more comlpex)
Fraction conversion 1/4 = 0.25 etc. crops up also or show 3/15 of 2304 as a decimal
Don't think they'll have progressed to Decimal, Binary, Octal number conversion?

edit: Great point from Davestones - SHOW your workings - We used to get marks for this even though overall answer might be wrong!

You may also get questions like: 2 trains leave at the same time one travelling at x mph the other at y, train x makes 10 stops and train y makes 8 train x arrived 10 minutes before train y how long was each stop on average.

nay give them a chance, i've just sat a second year mechatronics exam for my mechanical engineering degree, we have only just covered d/b/o/h conversions...

yes, you should get continuation marks if you show your working, and carry through any errors. we still get them at uni now...

[Xaccers]

Non-calculator? In my day that was called mental arithmatic!
But then, shorty after my day pupils were able to take their subject books into science exams!

Definitely make sure you write out all your workings! Every single step, don't jump any.

[Paul M]

All my exams were non calculator .......

Wonder what my slide-rule's worth these days?

Originally Posted by Xaccers

Non-calculator? In my day that was called mental arithmatic!
But then, shorty after my day pupils were able to take their subject books into science exams!

Definitely make sure you write out all your workings! Every single step, don't jump any.

'in my day' mental arithmetic was done without a pen & paper, you had to literally work it out in your head - although there wasn't an exam.

I remember reading recently that 'younger' people are having trouble playing darts, becacause they cannot work out the scores & what combo they need for a finish.

In our exams we were allowed a book of log tables - but no slide rules...

- slightly but the recent program about the genius kid who could evaluate pi & learned Icelandic in a week, had a bit about Japanese kids learning to calculate using an abacus. After a while they were able to dispense with the 'physical' abacus & were able to visualise the transitions, thereby performing complex calculations 'in their heads' - it was very impressive.

[Paul]

I think it's time that calculators were not allowed in classrooms until students are doing a level of math that requires it. Too many kids are leaving school without even basic math and english qualifications these days. Mental arithmetic should be the cornerstone of maths education not a sidenote.

[Dave Stones]

well, back in my day... when i was doing gcse...

in our higher maths paper, we sat 1 calcuator paper, one non-calculator paper and one "mental arithmetic" paper. the mental arithmetic one was a multiple choice paper, the questions were read out on tape, and you had about 10 seconds to answer them...

i seem to remember when we did practice ones in class, i consistently got >70%, but a lot of the rest of the class were down around the low 40's mark...

i'm not sure what it proves, but yeah. and we only were allowed a certain model of calculator for the exams too. i'm glad my uni exams allow "any calculator", my hp 49g+ is a lifesaver sometimes...

[nffc]

They can ask anything from the course as long as you don't really need a calculator to work out- they may ask things like trig as well if they give you things to help you!

[Matthew]

I've got the same exam tomorrow and from what I have seen on past papers its the easy stuff that can be worked out with pen and paper.

Good luck with it.

[bdav]

Same here! good luck all!