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Summer 2018

Pearson Edexcel GCE Mathematics

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Summer 2018
Publications Code 8FM0_23_1806_ER
All the material in this publication is copyright
© Pearson Education Ltd 2018
Introduction

Calculators are expected to be used but students must also be able to write down
mathematically what they are doing. Students are also advised to ensure they read the
questions carefully as far too many lost marks by not answering the given question.

Report on individual questions

Question 1
This proved to be one of the more difficult questions for the students. The question tests the
students’ knowledge of the Poisson distribution alongside hypothesis tests which wer clearly
familiar to them but their answers lacked the required detail.
Part (a) was generally well answered. The most common error was to calculate
P( X  5) 150 rather than do 150 minus the sum of other expected frequencies.

In part (b) we are not looking to see if the data can be modelled by a Poisson distribution but
specifically whether it can be modelled by Po (1.75) so this must be included in the
hypotheses. Part (c) not only tested if the candidate knew how to calculate the degrees of
freedom but also if they understood the reasons behind their calculation. The majority of
students knew why groups were combined, although a minority did not mention in some form
that it needed to be the last 3 columns which were combined. Few students were able to
explain why one was subtracted. The most common reasons were because there is 1
constraint or because that is the rule rather than making reference to the fact the two totals
have to agree or that the mean had been given and not estimated.
Weaker students who were not confident in how to calculate the degrees of freedom often
started with the premise that there were six groups rather than 7 probably not realising the
first column was for zero orchids.
In part d students had clearly been trained to recognise that the chi-squared distribution was
required and were able to correctly state the value of 9.488 however, conclusions were very
rarely in context, many simply referring to the data rather than the number of orchids.
Part (e) is a “show that” question and many students did not make their method clear. The
working should include the distributions being used as well as the methods. Many students
clearly used the binomial distribution, even though the question asked them to use an
approximation. Others got 0.706 and then just went straight to the given answer with no
indication that Poisson (0.706) was the distribution being used.
Question 2
This question proved to be very accessible to all students. Parts (a), (b) and (c) were generally
well answered. The most common error in part (b) was to not include the distribution used to
obtain the final answer and in part (c) to use the Poisson distribution rather than the binomial
distribution.
In part (d) the hypotheses were generally stated with the correct parameter although a
minority of students tried to write them in words. The most common errors appeared in the
calculation where a common error was to use the mean of 3.7 or to calculate the P( X  14) .
Pleasingly conclusions were generally given in context for this question.

Question 3
The majority of students were able to gain the mark for part (a).
Part (b) proved to be a challenge for all but the most able. Those who wrote down the ways
in which Greg could win faired best as they were then able to attempt to find the probability
in terms of a and b however, this was rarely seen. Most students tried to just write down the
probability of Greg winning straight away with little success. However, they usually managed
to use the fact that the total of the probabilities must equal one to gain the mark for
3a  2b  0.7
In part (c) students used a mixture of possible methods. The majority of students knew the
correct formula for the variance but did not check it was all in W or X. All too often they used
E( X 2 )   E(W ) . Another common error was to try to find E( X 2 ) using E  2W  5 .
2

Question 4
It was clear from the candidate’s solutions that they knew how to use a chi-squared test on a
contingency table. However, the most common error was having the hypotheses the wrong
way around.
The majority of students had little trouble in calculating the missing expected values but a
minority did not realise that the 8.29 given in the question did not include these values and
O2
lost unnecessary marks. Others worked out for the 2 values and added this to the 8.29
E
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