Examiners Report/

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Summer 2014

Pearson Edexcel International GCSE

Further Pure Mathematics (4PM0/02)

Paper 2
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Summer 2014
Publications Code UG038863
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 Principal Examiners Report
International GCSE Further Pure Mathematics
(Paper 4PM0-02)

Introduction to Paper 02
This paper was found to be more accessible than Paper 1. There was little
evidence that students ran out of time before being able to demonstrate
their knowledge fully.

Students need to be reminded of the need to show sufficient working in

case the answer they provide is incorrect. Correct answers obtained from a
calculator usually qualify for full marks, but without full working being
shown, incorrect answers cannot qualify for any marks on that part of a
question. It is good practice to quote general formulae before substituting
numbers. Incorrect substitution can still lead to some marks being gained
as quoting a correct formula and substituting satisfies the general condition
of "knowing the method and attempting to apply it" which has to be
demonstrated before a method mark can be awarded. This would apply
even to basic formulae such as the one for solving a quadratic equation.
As always there were cases seen where students have used a previously
obtained rounded answer in a subsequent calculation. Sometimes using, for
example, an answer rounded to three significant figures in subsequent
working will give the same three significant figure result for a later answer
as using the non-rounded value does, but frequently it does not. Such cases
of premature approximation are always penalised. This can be avoided by
initially writing down at least four figures for the first answer and then
rounding as instructed; this way the more accurate answer is still available
should it be needed later on in the question.

In trigonometric questions students are advised to work in the units of the

question and let their calculators do the work for them. Working in degrees
instead of radians (or vice versa) and then changing units to obtain an
answer in the required units not only wastes valuable time, but also
increases the chance of errors.

Report on Individual Questions

Question 1
Overall this was well answered with a good number of students able to
achieve full marks. Common errors included using degrees and failing to
convert to radians and using an incorrect formula usually arc length rather
than sector area in part (a). Some students appeared confused between the
area of a sector and the area of a triangle.
Question 2
Most students answered this question well, correctly identifying that there
are 56 terms in the sequence and either finding S56 or S60 S 4 . However,
there were still a significant proportion of students who scored no marks
because they failed to grasp the number of terms in the series. There were
also a significant number of responses that used 55 terms rather than 56,
hence gaining only 2 marks. There were very few blank responses,
suggesting students understood what was required.

Question 3

In part (a) most students managed to find a correct expression for OB (a

small minority found BO ). Less able students then had problems such as
not knowing the meaning of isosceles, not knowing how to calculate the
length of a side and not stating a conclusion. Many students appeared to
not know what was meant by a unit vector and so could not gain the mark
in part (b).

Question 4
Blank responses for part (a) were very rare. There was a very high success
rate for students attempting the question. Students understood what was
required and made good attempts to find the correct coordinates. These
were almost always in pairs and only a handful stopped after finding the x
values.
In part (b) almost all students gave answers involving inequalities with x , 2
and 5. However, many were incorrect, often giving answers with x in the
middle of two inequalities. Many of those identifying the correct region lost
a mark for expressing the required outside regions in a double-sided
inequality. Only a few did not include =. Most students started part (b) by
solving again rather than using their answer from part (a). Those who drew
sketches were more likely to succeed.

Question 5
Parts (a) and (b) were answered correctly and concisely by the majority of
students. However there was more differentiation between the ability of
students in part (c). In part (c), most of the students attempted the change
of base correctly, but many were unable to deal with the resulting equation.
Some confused the laws of logs relating to log 64 often ending up with
1
log p . The most successful students substituted to make a quadratic in x
3
or y . Solving the quadratic posed few problems for those students.
Question 6
The marks on this question were quite polarised. Those who successfully
negotiated the algebra in part (a) often went on to gain full marks. Those
who did not, scored little more than 2 or 3 marks. Blank responses were
uncommon. Students were usually able to recall at least one of the required
formulae for part (a) but of those who had both correct, very few realised
a
(or at least did not take advantage of the fact) that is present in both
1 r
S and Sn. This would have been helpful in part (a) and also in part (c).

The formulae needed in part (a) were generally well known although a
sizeable minority only recalled one of them correctly. The best solutions
came from using the correct sum formula, the sum to infinity formula and
dividing as shown in the mark scheme. Equally successful was using a + ar
+ ar2 = 175 and substituting a = 200(1 r). A few arrived at a quartic
equation in r, 200r4 -200r3 -25r + 25 = 0 and correctly solved to r = 1 or r3
= 1/8, although a significant number using this approach made sign errors
in rearrangement and therefore did not cancel correctly.
If part (a) was correct then part (b) usually was too. The great majority of
students knew what to do in part (c), although a few started using
arithmetic series formulae in this part. Sometimes the algebraic
manipulation was a bit unwieldy but many successfully arrived at
n
1 1
= . As many students then used inspection of powers of 2 as used
2 256
logs to complete to n = 8 . One noteworthy source of error seen in solving for
n was 100 0.53 =503 .

Question 7
In part (a) most students managed to find the coordinates of the point of
intersection with the majority using the first method. Those who used
differentiation tended to make mistakes.
The most common error seen in (b) was the failure to establish the correct
limits of integration. Many students used 0 and 4 only to find that the result
of the integral in the first scheme method was then zero. Another error was
to forget that the equation of the curve was in terms of y 2 and to square
again before attempting to integrate. There were two problems for those
who used the second method sign errors when taking away the brackets
and not realising that the volume of the small cone was needed.
Question 8
Almost all students knew what to do in parts (a), (b) and (c). As with
similar questions in previous years, most students found these
straightforward and provided consise calculations and well-constructed
graphs whereas a small minority had little idea of what was actually being
asked and, in particular, had little or no understanding of asymptotes. Part
(d) was less accessible. Some students omitted this part, others did not
realise that they needed to differentiate. Completely blank responses were
very rare.

In part (a) the method for finding asymptotes was generally well known,
although there were a surprising number of errors here. Not all gave
equations and the asymptotes were sometimes reversed, although students
then frequently labelled them successfully on their sketches in part (c).
3
Quite a few students made x the subject in order to find y = .
4
In part (b) the coordinates of the intercepts with the axes were usually
correct but occasionally reversed, although less often than with the
asymptotes. Most students made a good attempt at the sketch in part (c),
and some of the errors in parts (a) and (b) were corrected here. However,
many students did not gain the full 3 marks for the graph, sometimes
because the asymptotes/crossing points were not labelled, sometimes
because the graph had only one branch. The standard of graph sketching
was no better or worse than in previous series. Some students take care,
others rush; some label everything, others label nothing. Those who
attempted the differentiation in part (d) did so very successfully to gain
M1A1 and almost all used the quotient rule as in the mark scheme. Only on
few occasions were the terms on the numerator reversed. Only a handful of
students used the product rule. There were occasional slips in substituting
x = 1 , sometimes in the removal of the brackets in the numerator but more
often in the denominator. The B1 for y = 5 was usually given as were the
next M1A1ft for the equation of the normal but a noticeable minority used
an incorrect point (one of the intercepts with the axes). The great majority,
having successfully obtained the equation, managed to give the answer in
the required form. There were many fully correct solutions here.
Question 9
Parts (a) and (b) were very successfully done by most students. The only
issue was the omission of = 0. However students often realised that this
was missing and went back and added it as an afterthought.

For part (c) those students who were familiar with factorising cubics dealt
with the question without any issues but a few found the correct factors but
did not display all three factors together, thereby failing to complete the
demand to "factorise completely".

In part (d) the most common error was to terminate the curve at the points
of intersection with the x -axis. Some students drew a negative cubic curve.
It was rare to see fully correct solutions for part (e). Many used the wrong
limits and some used complicated combinations of integrals of the two
functions. A frustrating error was not to give the answer to 3SF, 500/27 was
a common answer. Those who were most successful simplified the
difference of the two equations before integrating. The limits were usually
correct but errors were made when substituting them.
Question 10
The first part of the question on deriving double angle formulae from the
addition formulae for sine and cosine was answered well by most students,
although there was variation in the length of working produced to support
their conclusion. Those who failed to earn marks simply did not show
sufficient intermediate steps to justify the given result for cos 2A, or failed
to change the B in the addition formula to an A, or used a corrupted version
1 or cos A = 1 sin A . The
of the Pythagorean identity such as cos 2 A sin 2 A =
great majority of students scored all available marks.

Many students successfully proved the identity in part (b) although some
failed to use their answers to part (a) and repeated the same work. It was
surprising to find a number of students who answered part (a) correctly but
then made sin 3A = sin A + sin 2A in part (b), as if the addition formula no
longer applied. Missing brackets were also an issue in part (b), but most
students recovered successfully in their next line of working. Where
students started badly or lost their way subsequently, many tried making
small but completely unjustified adjustments to get to the given result.

To solve the equation in part (c) students were required to see the
connection with the result from part (b). A good proportion managed this,
but there were a handful who arrived at fully correct or nearly fully correct
solutions without expressing the equation in terms of sin 3x . In these
cases, many students tried unsuccessfully to factorise the expression while
more successful students were able to write down values of sin x directly,
presumably through the use of a calculator. A large number of students
worked in degrees regardless of the method they used and many lost marks
through failure to convert to radians or inaccurate conversion. The smallest
value of x seemed particularly susceptible to rounding errors, perhaps as
the third significant figure is in the ten thousandths place. Those who were
able to work in terms of sin 3x in radians from the start were least likely to
make these errors. It was very rare to see responses that gained both
accuracy marks. For those who got as far as solving and using radians
0.0843 rather than 0.0842 was commonly seen, although 0.963 and 2.18
were usually accurate. The fourth value was often missing or incorrect.

Few students managed to answer parts (d) and (e) correctly many failed
to use their previous result to obtain an expression to be integrated and
therefore did not score any marks. Only a small number of students seemed
to have a good grasp of integrating trigonometric functions with many
trying to apply some version of a rule for integrating powers of x , so that
cos4 appeared regularly but sin2 and similar were also seen. Those
students whose integration strategies were based on increasing powers
generally saw no need to use an identity to simplify the integral but even
some of those who could see a link with the previous parts of the questions
struggled to make the necessary substitution. Many of those who
successfully transformed the integral tended to make slips in integration.
Question 11
In part (a) a surprising number of students choose to start with cos 60 = ...
rather than using cosine rule in the usual format. Students using the cosine
rule were usually successful whichever format they started with. Frequent
errors seen included multiplying out the brackets and re-factorising as their
proof, others misquoted the cosine rule, some did not know where to start
and others students incorrectly processed the length of BC.

In part (b) the quadratic was almost always solved correctly but the reason
1
for not using x= was rarely correct. Students said that it was
9
inappropriate but did not always spell out why this was so. Most did choose
to use x = 3 for the remainder of the question.

Part (c) was generally answered well with only a small minority using the
wrong combinations of angles and sides. Most used the sine rule but the
cosine rule was seen occasionally. A significant minority of students failed to
give the answer correct to 1 decimal place.

Some students did not appreciate the significance of exact in part (d),
1
giving the answer as a decimal. Those who used x = should have realised
9
when they obtained a negative area that they should have used x = 3.
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