What are the pass rates for past exam papers?

[Gbob1]

Is there any way to find out? I've sort of made my way through a past paper - April 2000 using notes. For the first 7 questions I only lost 2 marks but then thereafter things went spiralling downhill. I missed out question 11 because I hadn't done that in the question and answers bank yet and I missed out Q12 and Q14 because I just didn't understand it. So all in all I got 40/100 (with notes and taking roughly around 2.5 hours). Or you could say 40/75 out of all the questions I attempted to make the percentage a bit more sightly

For a first attempt is this quite terrible? Was this quite an easy paper? What sort of mark should I be aiming at 1 month before the exam for example on this paper?

Thank you.

*P.S when marking the paper it doesn't tell us what marks are for what in the mark scheme (unlike A-levels). So do we just take each line as a mark in itself or is it a relatively subjective thing?

 

[capitalH]

Pass mark

I think you want to know the pass mark for the subject (as opposed to the pass rate, which says how many students passed).

It is not published. Ever.

Your other questions

1) For a first attempt old exam it is not necessarily terrible. I had worse and still passed, but you have a lot of work ahead of you. Also, consider the other subjects (if any) that you may have at the moment.

2) Depends on how much time you can spend. I do some old papers, to practice and to identify which areas I need to concentrate on in my remaining time.

3) Marking your own work can be difficult. I think that 1 point per line can be a bit optimistic though, and will depend on how verbose your answers is. When I mark my work I use a conservative binary approach (all marks or no marks) for mathematical papers, as I am unsure if they mark with the mistake. This also helps me to focus, but may not necessarily work for you.

 

[bystander]

I strongly advise getting a mock from ActEd with marking. The markers see loads of scripts and sometimes you get comments that indicate your relative strengths ie they will tell you common pitfalls.

Broad brush I'd say you want at least 60%. Leaving qns out is not good on the day. If you get yourself on the borderline pile, they do look for breadth of knowledge and its hard to demonstrate that with qns missing.

As for part marks it is generally for each stage of calculation rather than individual line. Do include audit trails so they can tell what you are trying to achieve. If you make one slip and then carry on perfectly thats 1 or 2 marks lost but not the whole marks for the qn.

But practise is the key so keep going!