New Mathematics Exam Guide
Concord Maths Teacher, Mr Kevin Martin has published a book to help students develop their exam technique and maximise their mathematics marks. Mr Martin, who is also Principal Examiner for International Maths A Level with Pearson exam board was inspired to develop the guide by his years of experience as an examiner.
As a principal examiner, Mr Martin has seen many examples of students failing to get marks, even when it seems that they understand the material. He was already using examples of these to help colleagues, both examiners and teachers when, in discussion, a colleague said “It’s a shame that the students don’t have this” and the idea of creating something specifically for students built momentum from there. As Mr Martin says, teachers often impart exam technique advice throughout a course, but, often that can be sporadic and depend on a specific mistake being made by that student or someone in their class. Developing a single location where students can go to learn about exam technique provides every student with a full picture of how to polish their answers.
Among the fundamental lessons Mr Martin hopes students will take from the book is seeing the importance of removing any risk of ambiguity in their answers so that examiners can be clear when a mark should be awarded. In writing the book, he was conscious that although there are some specific differences between exam boards and between GCSE and A Level qualifications, most important lessons in exam technique are transferable between these. Where differences occur, the book explains different approaches and encourages students to read the specifications from their exam board with an eye on exam-technique too.
Having collated real-world examples from his years of experience, Mr Martin set about creating a set of fictional model questions and candidate responses that illustrate key issues in exam technique, from lack of accuracy to clear understanding and use of command words and even errors in copying across answers. The book covers pure mathematics, statistics and mechanics.
Mr Martin really enjoyed creating the guide, though from conception to holding a final copy has taken around two years.
The resulting book provides a guide to making sure students gain as many marks as possible, securing the exam grades that their learning deserves. In future it may be joined by a statistics specific title and potentially one for mechanics questions too.
