Stuck on GCSE maths topics?
Check out these panic calming tips & explanations to help you get through your gcse maths exam
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Completing the Square
Circle geometry - easy as pie part 1
Graphs & Gradients explained - like a sloped block of cheese
Graphs make up a huuuge part of the gcse maths syllabus.
Its a topic that comes up in both foundation and higher tier, the questions can easily range from level 3 to level 9.
Expanding Double/Triple Brackets - Go Nuts
If you want any hope in passing your gcse maths exam and if you want a half decent grade, you need to master expanding brackets (and factorising, but we’ll do that in another post.)
Expanding two (or more) brackets is where you need to be super careful.
Minus numbers can really trip you up.
However if you do it step by step, its fairly straightforward.
Expanding Brackets: Pistachios Anyone?
Expanding brackets is the process of removing the brackets from something like this: 3(x + 2)
(Thinking about it like removing the shells from a pistachio nut, might help you remember).
To remove the brackets or expand the expression, you need to multiply.
You multiply the number or letter that’s on the outside of the bracket with everything inside the bracket, but 1 step at a time:
Direct Proportion: More Chocolate = More Happiness
2 things are directly proportional if increasing one of them increases the other by the same amount or the same scale factor.
For example: When you buy fruit, increasing the weight of the fruit, increases the price.
To answer questions based on direct proportion, you usually work out the cost of one and then multiply up accordingly.
Dividing in a Given Ratio - How to share that cake
Not everything in life is equal.
And not everything is shared equally - you don’t really want to split your chocolate cake and share it out… but sometimes you have to.
So how do you split things up when they aren’t equal.
For example, how do you split a cake in the ratio 1 : 3 (in your favour)?
Drawing Graphs from Ratios - quick tip
You can treat Ratios like coordinates on a graph.
If you have a ratio in its simplified form, like 1 : 4
And then if you scale it up by multiplying - we learnt this is in my previous post on gcse maths ratios.
You can create a set of ratios like this:
Ratio and Proportion - Strawberries to Ice Cream
Ratio is a level 4/5 topic and, depending on where they decide to throw it in, can easily be a level 6 to 9 topic too.
Ratio can come up in both the foundation and higher gcse maths exam.
Its worth spending time to learn what ratio is and the different kinds of questions that can come up.
The questions on ratio in the foundation paper are usually quite straight forward.
Percentage Increase & Decrease - like making your own pop corn
Percent is a big topic in Secondary School Maths. If you don’t fully understand percentages whilst in KS3 - years 7 to 9 - you will struggle a lot in year 10 and 11 whilst preparing for your GCSE maths exam.
By the way, the work you do in years 7, 8 and 9 is the foundation maths GCSE. So, although nobody tells you, you do actually start your maths gcse in year 7.
Solving Equations - its like choosing your fave chocolate
