News today that the Department for Education inadvertently but helpfully posted a SATS test on a practice paper website some time before the real thing (not a good week for the department, the National Audit Office found holes in their accounts). This made me think, how much would it really help to see an exam before?

The answer is, if you didn’t know it was going to be the real thing, then it wouldnt help that much. It would be easy to forget the solutions, especially if time passed.

However, if you did know it was going to be the exam, you would take extra care to remember the methods and solutions.

In practice the chances of this happening are almost zero. Or are they? In the following sense this does happen.

Certain questions occur time after time in pretty much the same form – just with different numbers. Actually this tends to happen more in A-Level than GCSE, but consider these examples:

June 2015 : Expand and simplify (t +2)(t + 4)     
November 2014 Expand and simplify (2x + 3) (x – 8)
June 2013 Expand and simplify (m + 3) (m + 10)

(Answers below)

They are in effect the same question, same technique, but with different numbers.

Will esentially the same question occur in 2016? We shall find out soon. You could look at it in two ways. Either, it occurs so often it’s time for a break: or it’s a staple question, it will occur agan. Second guessing the examiner’s mind is impossible in terms of exact questions, but broadly you can predict the type of question.

What’s clear is that this type of algebra, whether “expand the brackets”, or perhaps the reverse – “factorise”, introduce the brackets, and solve the quadratic – is likely to crop up.

Therefore if you have done your past paper practice, and it does reappear, then in effect you have seen the question before. At least the method, which you have practiced and mastered. If you turn over the paper and see this type of question, you think “joy, I know how to do this”.

Of course not every question is a “repeat” question, but broadly quite a large proportion have similarities. As a back up to learning the methods, past paper practice, with access to worked answers, is so incredibly useful ! And why my tutoring homework always includes some real (on paper, not PC ) past paper examples.

Answers:

June 2015 : Expand and  simplify (t +2)(t + 4)    t² + 6t + 8   
November 2014 Expand and simplify (2x + 3) (x – 8)   2x² – 13x – 24
June 2013 Expand ans simplify (m + 3) (m + 10)   m² + 13m + 30