Due to the disruption to schooling caused by the Coronavirus pandemic, exam boards have provided advance information for the upcoming Summer 2022 GCSE exams. This consists of:
- a list of topics that will come up in the exams, allowing students to focus their revision on fewer topics
- a formula booklet which will be provided in the exam (containing formulas such as Pythagoras’ theorem and the area of a trapezium) so that there are fewer things for candidates to remember
This blog will summarise this advance information, so you don’t have to read through it all yourself.
Firstly, it is worth noting that different exam boards have different advance information, so make sure you check which exam board your school uses first. I will only consider Edexcel and AQA in this blog, as most schools in Bristol use one of these two.
Formulas Given
These are the formulas given in each exam:
| Foundation | Higher |
| Area of a Trapezium | Area of a Trapezium |
| Volume of a Prism | Volume of a Prism |
| Area and Circumference of a Circle | Area and Circumference of a Circle |
| Pythagoras’ Theorem | Pythagoras’ Theorem |
| SOHCAHTOA | SOHCAHTOA |
| Compound Interest | Compound Interest |
| P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B) – P(A and B) | P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B) – P(A and B) |
| The Quadratic Formula | |
| Sine Rule | |
| Cosine Rule | |
| Area of a Triangle = 1/2absin(C) | |
| P(A and B) = P(A given B) × P(B)* |
* given in Edexcel exam only
Surprisingly, formulae for Density, Pressure and Speed are not given. Read this blog for tips for remembering these. Nor have the formulae for area of a sector or arc length.
Examinable topics
Now the more interesting part – which topics are going to appear in the exams? And more importantly, which ones are not going to appear?
It is much easier to list the topics that will not appear in the exams. Topic names obviously differ depending on the specification, so for consistency I will use the names of the Metatutor worksheets. I will include links to all the worksheets too. Note: there are some topics that do not have Metatutor worksheets yet, so have been missed from this list – for a more exhaustive list, read these documents for Foundation and this one for Higher.
Some of the hints are quite vague so I have tried my best to categorize them. If you want to read the advance information yourself you can follow these links: Edexcel and AQA.
Topics that will not appear in the foundation exams:
Topics that will not appear in the higher exams (remember that both foundation and higher tier topics can appear in higher exams – higher topics are in bold):
Here are a few other things that I picked out as being very specific:
Foundation:
- Transformations will appear in the AQA exam, but they have singled out translations and not mentioned any other types
- Percentage profit is mentioned specifically by Edexcel
- Depreciation is specifically mentioned by Edexcel, but not interest
- Calculating midpoints is explicitly mentioned by AQA
- Volume of a cube and cylinder is explicitly mentioned by Edexcel
- I have a feeling that properties of triangular prisms (eg. number of faces, edges and vertices) will come up in Edexcel
Higher:
- The Capture-Recapture Method is specifically mentioned by Edexcel. These questions are very specific so will be easy to revise for. CorbettMaths has a good worksheet here
- The Difference of Two Squares is specifically mentioned by Edexcel. These are also very specific and easy to revise for. You can use CorbettMaths’s worksheet to practice here
- Compound interest is specifically mentioned by AQA, but not depreciation
- Depreciation is specifically mentioned by Edexcel, but not interest
- Equation of a tangent to a circle is specifically mentioned by Edexcel
- Volume of a composite solid is specifically mentioned by Edexcel. These are compound shapes as prisms
- Exponential graphs are specifically mentioned by AQA
- The trigonometric graphs (sin, cos and tan) are mentioned specifically in Edexcel
I hope you have found this useful. If you live in Bristol and want someone to help you or your child to prepare for these exams, book in a free taster session.