thanks for all your help, the non calculator paper was hard, but not impossible, there was a question with a grid with stuff like x + y + z = 10 then x + 2y + 3z = 28 etc etc with a grid of 9 expressions and you had to work out what x y and z were.
Plus, even though you helped me with simplifying, the last question was just that, and was impossibly hard!
well this exam works out at 27.5% of my total maths grade and altogether you need about 50% for a c, 65% for a b, 75% for an a and 90& for an a* and so far i'm 10 marks below an a* so need to have 5 marks over the a* boundary altogether on this exam and the next one in a few days time.
I look forward to hearing your result mollykins.
Sounds like they threw in a simultaneuos equations question.
If you found it hard, others would have found it hard too, so the pass mark will be flexed acordingly.
It was hard, then it just clicked and i managed to work it out and i checked it agaisnt all the sums they gave and they worked. what made it worse was that one value was a negative number.
But the triganometry was oober difficult and i don't know how they expected us to do it without a calculator.
I find that a lot of students don't know things like:
sin 30=cos60=1/2
cos 30=sin 60=root(3)/2
sin 45=cos 45=root(2)/2
and so tan 30=sin 30/cos 30=1/root(3)=root(3)/3
and tan 60=sin 60/cos 60=root(3)
and tan 45=1
sin 90=1 cos 90=0
if you know these you can do a lot without a calculator and often the root(2) and root(3) bits cancel out.