Ridiculously tough GCSE maths question leaves parents scratching their heads

Thousands of teenagers are opening up their GCSE and BTEC results this morning, with some taking part in a ground-breaking pilot scheme that allows them to access their grades through a mobile app.

It's a tough and nerve-wracking day for students who revised avidly for ther exams. But there's been oneGCSE calculationthat has been labelled "impossible" by parents who struggled to figure out the answer.

Secondary schoolstudents have been warned that places for sixth form colleges might be more competitive this year. Bill Watkin, head of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said some colleges are "almost certainly going to have to turn some young people away because they are oversubscribed".

For many students - and adults - maths is one of the hardest subjects to get to grips with, and there'll be no shortage of teens anticipating their results this morning. And if you're a student looking for some example questions, or a parent wanting to see just how hard the GCSE exams of the current day are, why not try and complete this fiendishly difficult question that was featured in a real maths exam?

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The question was put together after research from Save My Exams, who challenged parents to answer it and found that 100% of those quizzed got the answer wrong.

Of course, expecting students to pass every question on their exam papers is unreasonable. But the challenge goes to show just how difficult the tests can be - and how much kudos kids deserve. It also revealed that parents might have some revision of their own to do.

Surprisingly, the trick question failed to dent parents' confidence, despite their poor results. Of the 1,000 parents quizzed, 92% were unable to answer the question at all, and 8% failed to get the correct answer.

Yet, an average of 75% of these parents still believed they could pass their children's exams. One in two (52%) admitted they don't always understand the homework questions their children are set, though.

The GCSE maths question that the parents failed shows a shape with all its measurements in centimetres, where the area of the shape is A cm² and respondents are asked to show that A = 2x² + 24x + 46.

Thankfully, Save My Exams' maths lead Lucy Kirkham has worked out the answer for anyone left stuck by the question.

Sharing advice, Lucy said: "Seeing questions with loads of Algebra can be scary but breaking them down into smaller chunks will help you work through them more easily.

"Our maths experts at Save My Exams create colour-coded model answers which break down each question into easier steps to carefully guide users to the correct answer.

"This question gives you the answer you're working towards, which can sometimes be off-putting as you wonder 'How am I ever going to get there?'. Don't let it worry you, just try to start with the first step and you'll surprise yourself with how far you can get!

"Even if you don’t get all the way through, marks are awarded for different stages of your working so you can always try to pick up some marks and use our model answers to see how you’d pick up the rest."

It is not just maths that confuses parents, however, though it ranked as the worst subject. According to the research by Save My Exams, parents struggled the most with Maths (53%), followed by Science (35%), Spanish (30%), French (29%) and English Literature (27%).

A version of this story was first published on December 25th 2022.

Did you get the right answer? Let us know in the comments.