| Available from: www.alevelmaths.com Cost and licence:
Multi-user licence £141.00 (inc. VAT) Single user licence £70.50
(inc. VAT) System requirements: Windows 95, Microsoft Word |
MathsDisc is a resource aimed at the new AS/A2
specifications and catering for all the major examination boards. This, the
first disc, covers the Pure modules. Others are in the pipeline for Statistics
and Mechanics. To put it simply, MathsDisc "does exactly what it says on the
tin". It is a large catalogue of MS Word files which enables the user to create
homework tasks, tests, mock exams, revision notes and so on, all based on AS
standard questions. Upon receiving the disc I put it into the disc drive,
opened Word, printed out the help file, and after a few moments scanning the
details I created a test paper for Pure 1 on surds, radians, trig, geometric
progressions and differentiation. A couple more minutes were needed to create
the question and answer sheet. All questions and answers come fully formatted,
equations being created with the equation editor found in Word, or its "big
brother" MathType 4.0.
All this is exactly what I need right now as a
teacher of three Year 12 AS Mathematics groups, with scant resources as we
enter the final phase of the course just before the examination season. I want
to be able to give out relevant exam practice work, knowing I have the answers
at hand. There is no new software to learn. The Word files are designed for use
with the Insert… File option in Word, which is straightforward and
intuitive. You can format the completed paper as you like, adding titles,
instructions, question numbers and so on. Any teachers embarking on NOF
training in Word could certainly make the process more profitable to them by
using these resources as they go.
The catalogue for Pure 1 for Edexcel
contains fifteen topics. Pure 2 contains 17 and Pure 3 contains 18. Each topic
has 10 questions. So you have a resource bank of a total of 500 questions and
answers available to you, which means that, for a short 5-question test on Pure
1, you've got enough for 150C5 different papers - that's
over half a billion! That should keep my Year 12 students busy.
In
addition to this resource bank, the disc also contains the official
specifications, specimen papers and mark schemes from the various exam boards,
all in PDF format: bulky documents running to hundreds of pages. In Word format
there is a topic chart, templates for fronting exam papers and record sheets
for students and classes.
Finally, what about the quality of the 500
questions themselves? The creators promise that all topics are covered. There
is too much here to judge overall, but based on the numerous samplings I took,
the questions - and more importantly the solutions - look fine and typical of
what I am teaching and would expect the students to meet in their exams. For
instance, here, inserted directly from the disc (but displayed here as a
graphic image), is a typical sample from Pure 3, Topic 19, Integration by
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