Examiners’ Report

Principal Examiner Feedback

January 2022

Pearson Edexcel International GCSE

Mathematics A (4MA1) Paper 2HR
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January 2022
Publications Code 4MA1_2HR_2201_ER
All the material in this publication is copyright
© Pearson Education Ltd 2021
International GCSE Mathematics
4MA1 2HR Principal Examiner’s Report

This paper gave students, who were well prepared, ample opportunity to demonstrate
positive achievement. Some challenging questions towards the end of the paper
discriminated well and stretched the most able students.

Some students still need to heed the wording ‘showing all your working’ as on
questions where this is requested no marks are awarded for merely seeing a correct
answer.

Question 1
This question was answered well by most candidates, however a small number of
students showed poor understanding of probability, especially in part (b) where
multiplication was often seen. The other common error was to divide answers by 4.
Accuracy when adding or subtracting was occasionally lacking.

Question 2
Part (a) was generally well done, with the 78 × 12 = 936 by far the more common
approach. Some students correctly found the multiplier as 1.3 but then failed to give
final answer as 30% increase. A few candidates attempted to use 720 ÷ 936 which could
not lead to a correct answer. In terms of approaches, those using the (1+P/100) route
were generally more prone to errors.

In part (b), a pleasing number of correct answers were given with the majoirity
comparing the total costs 2112 and 2100 from various routes, some finding 288 and 300
first. Fewer compared 288 and 300 occasionally leading to the wrong conclusion. Some
responses suffered from a lack of understanding about what was being reduced or what
they had to calculate in order to make a valid comparison. Thus answers of 1312 were
being compared with 2100 and the wrong choice of coupon made.

Question 3
In part (a) the majority of candidates were able to give a correct answer, the main error
was to use an = or incorrect equality sign, often when the correct answer seen in
working. Errors were made when subtracting, since candidates are allowed a calculator
they should be reminded to use it to check their working, however simple it may seem.
Part (b) was very well answered with the vast majority of responses getting full marks.
Some candidates struggled to rearrange the equation, attempting to remove the 7 or the
4x out of the fraction without considering the denominator. A few candidates got as far
8 3
as 8x = 3 and gave an incorrect answer of rather than .
3 8

Question 4
Very many students were able to make a good start by finding the internal angles of the
pentagon and the octagon. However, many went on to make the assumption that the line
IC bisects the interior angle of the octagon and hence scored no further marks. The
realisation that the angle IBC was part of an isosceles triangle was less often seen.
Question 5
Answers to this standard question were commonly correct. Most correct answers were
gained by the shortest method i.e. 7100 × 1.0253.
There were a few who incorrectly gave a simple interest answer, or used a multiplier of
125 instead of 1.025 leading to an very large amount of money, which should have
indicated an error in their method. Additionally, candidates need to be aware that the
use of the % sign in a calculation such as (1 + 2.5%) risks losing method marks. The
2.5
correct working to show is (1 + 0.025) or 1 .
100

Question 6
Parts (a) and (b) were well answered well, although a slightly higher proportion of
errors on (a) as some candidates incorrectly gave 0 as the answer.

Part (c) proved more of a challenge with students being unable to combine the powers
of 7 in a meaningful way that allowed them to find the value of m. The most successful
students were those who first wrote 7206 × 7𝑚 = 7211 , with not many students using
the method of writing the linear equation 206 + 𝑚 − 214 = −3 to obtain an answer.
Overall, a majority of students got a correct answer of m = 5, with a few giving −11 due
to sign errors.

Question 7
In part (a), many candidates gave correct answers. Most students either knew or wrote
down y = mx + c. Errors included mixing up gradient and intercept to get y = 5x −3.
Some missed out the x in their equation to get y = (3) +5. Quite a few did not answer at
all and left their page blank.

Part (b) was similarly answered well by most candidates, although errors included not
shading or clearly indicating the required area. The lines x = 6 and y = 2 were drawn
correctly in almost all cases, with a small minority reversing them. However, a
difficulty arose with the line for y = x + 1, with quite a few drawing either x = 1 or y = x
in error.

Question 8
Students who recognised this as a problem about a weighted mean generally scored full
marks. Most others simply ignored the fact that the numbers of Siberian and Bengal
tigers were different. The most common error was solving (260+x) ÷ 2 = 218, resulting
in an answer of 176kg.

Question 9
Many candidates were able to get 2 or 3 marks by finding the length of AC or the arc
length of the semicircle. Some students preferred to find AC by using a combination of
tan30o and Pythagoras; they usually were able to stay within the accuracy required by
the question.
In general, candidates were less successful in pulling together all 3 strands of the
problem - finding the hypotenuse, finding the arc length and remembering to subtract 6.
A few students used the area formula for the arc length of the semicircle.
Question 10
Many candidates were able to demonstrate an understanding of what to do, recognising
that they had to divide total spent on healthcare for each country by their population to
find how much was spent per person. Working directly in standard form was the most
successful approach, however some tried to do this, but ended up with absurd powers of
10, presumably from mishandling the powers in the calculation. Other students
displayed a lack of understanding - such as subtracting the populations and subtracting
the health care expenditure and trying to use these. Students were expected to work
directly in standard form. If they chose to convert to ordinary numbers they were at
greater risk of losing marks.

Question 11
Both parts of this question were answered very well. Entries in the table were nearly
alawys correct and generally the points were plotted accurately and a suitable graph
drawn. Students should be aware that joining all the points with straight line segments
will lose a mark, as the graph should be a smooth curve. Another common error on part
(b) was to plot the first point at (1, 12) as the scale of the axes caught some out.

Question 12
Not that many students knew that the angle of depression is the angle measured from
the horizontal so a very common wrong answer was 84.3, the complement of the correct
5.7. Other incorrect answers, with otherwise correct trigonometry included 264.3, and
occasionally candidates found 84.3 then subtracted from 180 to get 95.7.

Question 13
Missing brackets in the first (a − b) meant that many students failed to gain any marks,
even when brackets present many candidates made sign errors. There were many
students who could evaluate the given algebraic expression, but then could not identify
the value of the unknown 'y'. Some guessed and then checked the value and came out
with y = 8. The final mark proved elusive, with a common incorrect answer of 2. Those
who arrived at an answer of 8 did so by a wide variety of routes, some squaring to
obtain y3 = 512, whilst others simplified the surd fully to get 32 2 as an intermediate
step.

Question 14
Many candidates were able to get the first two parts correct. Some were confused in part
(a) and halved 110 and then looked up the cumulative frequency axis to read off their
value. generally they were consistently wrong for these two parts.

Part (c) was less successfully answered - many gave an answer of 30 presumably from
45 - 15. It was pleasing to see many students giving a convincing explanation to part
(d), but there were still students who got all parts of this question correct apart from this
one; some candidates did not score as they gave a more generic description of IQR and
spread rather than the specific case of algebra and geometry.

In part (e) many were able to isolate the 10. However, many did not appreciate that
selection really had to be without replacement and incorrectly calculated the probability
1 1
to be  . In general there was a lack of understand of ‘without replacement’.
6 6
Question 15
This was generally answered very well. Many students had a clear idea of the algebraic
processes to use and employed them accurately. Many gained the 1st mark but there was
then a failure to isolate terms in t3 and factorise the correct expression. In some cases
the subject was left as t3 and a minority of candidates failed to write t = as part of their
answer, thus losing the final accuracy mark.

Question 16
Most candidates recognised that they had to start by using the area of a triangle and
could often find the size of angle C and progress to find the length of BD using the
cosine rule, with few progressing to the correct final answer often losing the final
answer mark due to premature rounding, a common error in this paper. Those using
height in BCD rarely got further than h and a number used the idea that opposite angles
added up to 180°, confusion with cyclic quadrilaterals. A number found angle BAD and
gave this as their answer. Some assumed incorrectly that BD was 28 (ABD isosceles
triangle) or used Pythagoras where there was no right angle.

Question 17
Candidates who drew a tangent to the curve at x = 2 almost always went on to gain full
marks. There were a few exceptions where students had not used the given scales but
had counted squares, for example. Some misinterpretation of scale lost marks and a few
found the reciprocal of the gradient instead of the gradient required. Students who drew
a chord were not awarded any marks. It was disappointing to see that many responses
were left blank, with no attempt at a tangent drawn.

Question 18
This question was a fairly standard pair of simultaneous equations; one linear and one
quadratic.
Students were equally divided between those who substituted x = 2y - 1 into the
x 1
quadratic and those who used y . The latter substitution led to some more
2
complicated algebra because of the 3y2 term. The former substitution often resulted in
sign errors on the right hand side giving (2 y 1) 2 2 y 1 which meant losing at least 2
of the 5 marks available.
Students should be reminded that they must show working when solving a quadratic
equation - this can be as straightforward as substituting for 'a', 'b' and 'c' in the quadratic
formula, or factorising or completing the square, in all cases with the working visible.

Question 19
Those students who understood how to find the angle between a line and a plane usually
had no problem in finding the answer of 31.4o. However a significant number worked
out the complementary angle of 58.6o. These students understood the 3-D nature of the
problem and could do the work in the triangle ACE, but had forgotten or not fully
understood the concept of the angle between line and plane. The most common
approach, of those who could visualise the 3D nature of the problem chose to find AC,
then used tan ECA to find the angle. A high proportion of candidates did not know
where to start.
Question 20
Many candidates did not know where to start with this question, and it would appear
very few had seen a question like this before. A significant number were however able
to write down an expression involving a constant of proportionality, but few realised
that it was a different constant for the two expression and made little progression after
this.
Very few correct solutions were seen, and unfortunately some students managed to
navigate the algebra but wrote an approximate answer such as 11.1 thus losing the final
accuracy mark.

Question 21
This question was answered with varying degrees of success. Most of those candidates
who set up a correct equation for the total surface area gained full marks. A lot of errors
when finding surface area, by omitting the base area of the cylinder, adding in an extra
πr2 or using volume of sphere formula. Algebraic manipulation of first equation
sometimes very poor. Most gained marks by using ‘their’ x to find the volume (with a
few forgetting to halve the volume of a sphere) then use this to calculate density, though
only gaining 2 marks as their x had been found incorrectly.

Question 21
It was pleasing to see a number of clear and succinct answers to this challenging
question. Most students started by setting up an equation in terms of x relating an
expression for the total surface area to 81π. Often the term representing the base was
omitted, but if followed through carefully could still earn 4 marks. Some incorrect
responses included an extra πr2 or used the volume of sphere formula, rather than the
hemisphere. It was pleasing that the majority of candidates who got as far as density
knew the correct formula. On occasion, marks were lost due to early rounding.

Question 22
There were very few completely correct solutions to this with many candidates not
knowing where to start. Many could not get past the equation relating the gradient of the
10 q 6
line AC to it's given value. That is however often then provided the
p 8 7
answer q = 4, p = 1 which does, of course satisfy the above equation but not the other
information in the question.
This type of question, where there are two unknowns, will require a pair of independent
equations to be set up and then solved for p and for q. For a second equation the more
successful students used the fact that AB was perpendicular to BC to multiply the two
expressions for the gradients of the respective lines and set the product equal to -1.
This approach tended to more successful than using Pythagoras.

Question 23
A significant number of fully correct responses were provided, although including the
‘+’ sign before the square root sign lost the final mark. Many candidates were able to
substitute g(x) into f(x) to find fg(x) but then mistakenly solved the resulting quadratic
equation.
It was pleasing to see that many more students appear to be able to find the inverse of a
quadratic function (defined over suitable domains) - mainly by completing the square.
Many students were not aware of the significance of the domain of the function h and so
lost a mark for h(x) = 6 x 11

Summary
Based on their performance in this paper, students should:

• Learn how to deal with weighted means.

• Develop understanding how the tangent of a graph relates to its gradient.
• Sketch curved graphs
• Calculate probabilities without replacement
• Ensure that their working is to a sufficient degree of accuracy that does not
affect the required accuracy of the answer.
• When asked, show their working out or risk gaining no marks for correct
answers.
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