INTERNATIONAL

A-LEVEL
MATHEMATICS
(9660) Paper MA03 UNIT P1 (PURE MATHEMATICS)
Report on the examination
June 2022

Copyright © 2022 Oxford International AQA Examinations and its licensors. All rights reserved.
INTERNATIONAL A-LEVEL MATHEMATICS (9660) MA03 Report on the examination

REPORT ON EXAMINATION: INTERNATIONAL A LEVEL MATHEMATICS 9660 MA03 UNIT

P2 PURE MATHEMATICS JUNE 2022
Many students were well-prepared for the paper and there were many excellent scripts.
There were, however, a small number of students who were not well-prepared for the demands of this paper as
was evident in their low marks.
Students must ensure that they show all their working, otherwise full marks for questions might not be awarded
even if the final answer is correct.

Students need to realise that when they are asked to show a given result, they must show sufficient details in the
solution to justify the result. If a question states that a particular method has to be used in solving a question,
then the use of an alternative method is not acceptable.

There appeared to be no problem with students being unable to finish the exam due to lack of time.

QUESTION 01
This question was answered well with many students gaining full marks. The common errors were:

(a) Some students used Simpson’s rule rather than the trapezium rule as requested.
There were errors when students had their calculator in degrees mode, rather than radians.
(b) (i) Students were required to show a given result. This required the evaluation of the function(s) at both
0.8 and 0.9 and then drawing the appropriate conclusion.
(ii) The only errors in this part were calculations in degrees rather than radians.

QUESTION 02
(a) The majority of students started off with the quotient rule and gained the method mark. Some students
lost the accuracy mark with careless numerical mistakes when they expanded the brackets in the
numerator.
(b) There were two different approaches to this part, with both methods being equally successful. Students
could use their answer to part (a) and differentiate the ‘ln’ function, others started the question by
writing the given expression as two ‘ln’ functions and differentiating each one separately. Students did
not have to simplify their answer to gain full marks.

QUESTION 03
(a) Nearly all students were able to find the value of R, and many found the correct value of α. Some
students found a value in degrees despite being given the range of possible values in radians.
(b) (i) Students were not penalised if they had an incorrect value of R as this mark was a follow through and
the majority of students scored this mark

Copyright © 2022 Oxford International AQA Examinations and its licensors. All rights reserved. 2
INTERNATIONAL A-LEVEL MATHEMATICS (9660) MA03 Report on the examination

(ii) This part was less well answered with only approximately half of the students giving a correct answer.

QUESTION 04
(a) (i) This part was very well answered. Students were able to use the given information to set up a pair of
simultaneous equations which they were then able to solve.

(ii) This part was also well answered. There were occasional slips, giving the correct value of p but giving q
as 4, rather than 2.

(b) This part was more challenging. Students were able to score the method mark by cancelling the given
factor but then struggled to manipulate their expression into the form required in the question.

QUESTION 05
(a) Most students realised that they needed to use the identity sec²x = 1 + tan²x to obtain a quadratic
equation in terms of ‘tan’, but less than half of the students were able to solve completely their quadratic
equation in the given range. Students are advised to consider the number of likely solutions in a given
range to ensure that they did not omit any correct answers.

(b) This part tested student’s ability to adapt trigonometric identities. There were many different acceptable
approaches but as the question was ‘show that’ it is essential that all working is clearly shown. Only one
third of students presented sufficient working for a completely correct solution. At some stage of their
working students had to reduce expressions in 4x to expressions in 2x and then to terms in x by using
variations of the double angle formula.

2 sin 2 x
Students must show every step in their working. For example writing = tan x was not
sin 2 x
2 sin 2 x 2 sin x sin x
acceptable for full marks, as an intermediate step such as
= . = tan x was
sin 2 x 2 sin x cos x
required.

QUESTION 06
(a) This part was well answered with over three quarters of students earning full marks. The common errors
occurred with mistakes in the ‘signs’ of their expression. A few students used decimals rather than
fractions.

(b) (i) Students were expected to use their answer in part(a) and replace x by 2x and over 90% of students
scored the method mark.

Copyright © 2022 Oxford International AQA Examinations and its licensors. All rights reserved. 3
INTERNATIONAL A-LEVEL MATHEMATICS (9660) MA03 Report on the examination

(ii) This part proved to be challenging with only half of the students scoring full marks. Many students
realised that 0.5 was a critical value as this would give zero in the denominator, but they were unable to
correctly determine the complete range of possible values.
(c) This part proved to be a good discriminator as the full range of marks were seen. Some students solved
1 – 2x = 10 and substituted 0.45 into their previous expression despite the question stating that they
were instructed to use x = 0.1.
Students had to show the connection between the previous part and the cube root of 10 giving an
answer of twice their value found after their substitution.

QUESTION 07
(a) Students realised that the two transformations were a translation and a stretch, in either order, but
marks were lost through inaccurate terminology.
Students are expected to use ‘translation’ not ‘move’, and they should write as a vector the actual
translation. The correct vector depended as to whether this transformation was first or second. More of
the students were able to correctly identify the ‘stretch’.
(b) This part was correctly answered by over 80% of students.

QUESTION 08
(a) (i) Many students scored both marks. The common error was with the signs of the constants.
(ii) Students were instructed to use the result from the first part to answer this question. A significant
number of students decided to start again and tried to integrate the given expression, which proved to be
unsuccessful.
Using the result from the previous part led to two ‘ln’ integrals that could then be evaluated. Errors were
seen in the coefficients of the integrands and careless manipulation of their ‘ln’ expressions.

(b) (i) Many students lost marks here through not answering the question as instructed with the quotient
rule being used.
Students must show all their working when an answer is given otherwise they may lose marks.

(ii) This part was a tricky integration by substitution but the modal mark was the full five marks, scored
by just over a third of the students. Some students who struggled with the substitution were able to
score two marks by correctly differentiating u and correctly changing the limits.

QUESTION 09
(a) Nearly all students scored both marks.
(b) A quarter of the students were unable to form a differential equation.

Copyright © 2022 Oxford International AQA Examinations and its licensors. All rights reserved. 4
INTERNATIONAL A-LEVEL MATHEMATICS (9660) MA03 Report on the examination

Some students omitted the proportionality constant ‘k’ but were able to score marks by separating the
variables and correctly integrating.
Students who set up a correct equation and integrated were able to attempt to find both the constant of
integration, c and k, but they found the rearrangement to give an answer in the form required
challenging but still scored 7 marks out of the 9 marks available.
There were only just over 10% of students scored full marks.

QUESTION 10
(a) Over 40% of students failed to score any marks on this part, as they were unable to differentiate either of
the trigonometric functions correctly. Students who scored the first two marks were then required to
show correct simplification of their expressions to derive the given answer and over 30% of students
scored full marks.

(b) This part was well attempted, with over 50% of students scoring full marks, by using the given result from
part (a) and replacing t by p to find the gradient of the normal.

(c) Students were required to find the intersection points of their normal with the axes and then use
Pythagoras theorem to find the required length. This meant that students who made errors earlier in the
question still had 3 method marks available.

Over 30% of students scored full marks.

QUESTION 11
(a) Nearly all students scored this mark. The common error was giving their answer to A as (2.5, 0).
(b) (i) Again, this part was well answered with over 80% of the students scoring both marks. Some students
differentiated correctly but then simplified their expression incorrectly. These students were not
penalized in this part, but they were then unable to find the correct coordinates for M.

(ii) Over half of the students scored both marks. Some students lost the accuracy mark by giving a
decimal answer rather than the exact value as requested in the question.

(iii) Although over 40% of students scored full marks, the modal mark was zero. Students didn’t seem to
realise that they needed to find the value of the second derivative at M and then draw the appropriate
conclusion or to consider the gradient either side of the stationary point (although no students attempted
this alternative method). As the demand of the question was ‘show that’ students were required to give
detailed working to score the marks.

(c) This question required the area under a curve and then an interpretation of subtracting the area of a
triangle. To calculate the area under the curve, students had to use integration by parts. Errors occurred
with the signs during this integration. Students then needed to use the coordinates of the point A to find

Copyright © 2022 Oxford International AQA Examinations and its licensors. All rights reserved. 5
INTERNATIONAL A-LEVEL MATHEMATICS (9660) MA03 Report on the examination

the area under the curve in the region. Even if students were unable to integrate correctly, they could
still score the mark for finding the area of triangle OAB.

Students had to give their answer in an exact form and only approximately 30% of students scored full
marks.

QUESTION 12
This question required a complex use of implicit differentiation. Over one third of students were unable
to differentiate implicitly and scored zero.

Students used one of three different approaches to solve the problem :

dy
• differentiating the original expression, collecting terms in , and then eliminating fractions and
dx
‘ln’ terms leading to the given answer.

• isolating the ‘ln’ term, taking exponential of both sides, differentiating, and then collecting terms in
dy
leading to the given answer.
dx

dy
• isolating the ‘ln’ term, differentiating, collecting terms in , and then eliminating fractions leading
dx
to the given answer.

All three methos had a similar success rate with the full range of marks being seen. As before, students
must show sufficient working when the answer is given.

QUESTION 13
(a) This part was correctly answered by over 80% of the students. There were a few students who scored
the method mark but then made careless numerical mistakes and lost the accuracy mark.

(b) (i) This part was well answered with two thirds of students scoring full marks. A common error was
equating the line to the point A, rather than using the line AB. There were some errors seen when
students solved the pair of simultaneous equations.

(ii) This part was similarly well answered. Some students who used the ‘dot product’ correctly lost the
final mark by giving their answer in radians.

(c) There were many excellent solutions to this part with one third of students scoring full marks.

Students were expected to find a general point C on the line, find the direction vector CD and then set the
‘dot product’ equal to 0, to find the coordinates of C.

Copyright © 2022 Oxford International AQA Examinations and its licensors. All rights reserved. 6
INTERNATIONAL A-LEVEL MATHEMATICS (9660) MA03 Report on the examination

To complete the solution the majority of students used their answer to part(a) and found the lengths of
AC and BC. Others found the direction vectors for AC and BC and used the ‘dot product’ to show that the
triangle was right-angled.

Copyright © 2022 Oxford International AQA Examinations and its licensors. All rights reserved. 7
INTERNATIONAL A-LEVEL MATHEMATICS (9660) MA03 Report on the examination

GET HELP AND SUPPORT

Visit our website for information, guidance, support and resources at oxfordaqaexams.org.uk

FAIR ASSESSMENT PROMISE

In line with OxfordAQA’s Fair Assessment promise, the assessment design, marking and awarding of this
examination focused on performance in the subject, rather than English language ability.

OXFORD INTERNATIONAL AQA EXAMINATIONS

GREAT CLARENDON STREET, OXFORD, OX2 6DP
UNITED KINGDOM

info@oxfordaqaexams.org.uk
oxfordaqaexams.org.uk

Permission to reproduce all copyright material has been applied for. In some cases, efforts to contact copyright-holders may have been unsuccessful and
Oxford International AQA Examinations will be happy to rectify any omissions of acknowledgements. If you have any queries please contact the Copyright
Team, AQA, Stag Hill House, Guildford, GU2 7XJ.

Copyright © 2022 Oxford International AQA Examinations and its licensors. All rights reserved.