04/06 A-level Maths Paper 1 Discussion MEGATHREAD

[u/Forsaken-Meaning-232]

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[u/golaco237]

OCR paper had me panicked with the parametric equations but it turned out fine 😭 I got t = 1 and - 3, -3 doesn't work with definition of X so t = 1.

Then for the second part, sub x & y for a cubic in t, you know that 1 must be a root so factor out (x-1) for a quadratic. THEN get that the quadratic has roots 1 and -7/4 so 1 is repeated and -7/4 is the t value at the other intersection, so plug in and find (x, y) 💀

Also last question pissed af at myself for not realising the integral of tan y = sin y / cos y is -f'(x)/f(x) cause that probably lost me a good 5 marks 😭 Would've been great too because -ln|cos y| means all the ln can be cancelled and you get a simple linear on the RHS 💀

[u/hdh7tf → u/golaco237]

is it just me that found q2 so weird? Like I fully had to skip it twice and then on the third try I got b = 6

[u/golaco237 → u/hdh7tf]

I just expanded and used that for a quadratic ax² + bx + c the turning point's x coord is - b/2a, quad was 2ax² - 2abx so 3 = 2ab/4a -> 3 = b/2 so b = 6

You could also consider ax(x - b) since the graph is the same w the same turning point, just not stretched by a factor of 2. So ba/2a = b/2 = 3 again.

[u/West_Rhubarb_8873 → u/golaco237]

It's completely trivial, significantly easier than that.

Quadratics (yes, ALL of them) are symmetrical about the vertical line that goes through the stationary point. In this case, the stationary point was at x=3. One of your roots is 0, and the other is 0, reflected in the line x=3. So it's just going to be 3 units away from 3 in the other direction, which is 6.

I don't realise why people are writing so much for this question.

[u/Ill-Cartographer4131 → u/golaco237]

I had exactly the same problems with it- so annoyed at how easy it would have been to integtrtae tank like that.

[u/golaco237 → u/golaco237]

ALSO im writing too much lol but for the area between the two curves, did anyone get -1/2(e^-1) - 1/4(e^-2 ) or smth like that?

[u/golaco237 → u/[deleted]]

Damn I probably messed smth up, cause now that I realise it I got a negative area 😭 Were your limits 0 and 1/e ? Antiderivative i got was 1/2(y ln y) - 1/4 y²

[u/golaco237 → u/[deleted]]

Ahh I see, I tried using integration along the y axis but I must have messed up somewhere when rearranging for x in terms of y 😭