Maths Paper 2

David

Higher Level

Lucan Community College

This paper was a lot more accessible than a normal year. I have been practicing paper 2s over the weekend and was scared of it in general. When I opened this paper and saw the amount of probability questions, I was delighted. I felt more adjusted to the choice in the paper this time which means I didn’t waste any time figuring out what to do. I instantly realised that I didn’t feel comfortable with the proofs and theorems. From section 1, I completed 4 questions and didn’t do any addition because of this.

For section 2, again, similar to in paper 1 I found the questions to be quite similar to one another. There were 2 main probability and statistics questions and 2 trigonometry questions. It gave choice for the different sections of each chapter which was quite nice and the choice didn’t cause any extra stress.

Overall, this was a very nice paper in my opinion compared to previous years. A lot of people that I spoke to were extremely happy with how they did. I feel that the paper really catered for everyone in terms of having options open to all aspects of the course.

Jane

Higher Level

St. Mary’s Secondary School, Wexford

…. and with that, we never have to think about trigonometry again! 

The nerves kicked in before Maths again today - this time, I woke up at 5 A.M. and couldn’t go back to sleep, statistics formulae and trigonometry proofs dancing in my mind. However, as usual I settled down when I put pen to paper at 9:30, as panicked as I may have been, only minutes earlier!

The trend of overly tricky Section A questions continued from Paper 1, but I think I scraped my way through them relatively unharmed. I really enjoyed Q.2 on coordinate geometry, but I found the Area & Volume question quite tricky, as was the circle question. Like most students, I avoided Q.6 like the plague - I can deal with one proof, but 2 in the one question?! Not a chance, SEC.

While the long questions posed more of a challenge in terms of answer development, I feel like they were slightly easier to work with and I think I got on reasonably well with them. Q.7 on trigonometry was really nice for the most part, and hopefully I’ll have done ok in either Q.8 or Q.9 as well. Q.10 looked utterly unapproachable to me, though, so I stayed away - probability is far from one of my strong points!

Overall, while the paper was definitely more challenging than Paper 1 last Friday, it was navigable and I think everyone will have done well.