Preparing for the OCR Functional Skills Maths Assessment Functional Skills Mathematics Level 1 and Level 2

The Assessment At level 1 and 2, the assessment takes the form of a test. The test is set either at level 1 or level 2, depending on which level you have been entered for. You will only take the test at the end of a course of study. The test can be taken at any time of year, once your tutor enters you for the exam the paper will arrive within a week. If you take the level 2 test, you will either achieve level 2 or you will fail. If you take level 1, you will either achieve level 1 or fail. There are no grades, just pass or fail.

The Test The test is 1 hour 30 minutes long and 60 marks are available in total. The test consists of resources pages, where you are given information, and a question paper, where you are expected to use that information to answer the questions. There are 3 tasks, each with a different theme. The questions in each task follow on from one another. Questions towards the end of the task usually carry more marks and require you to use answers you have found earlier in the task. Each task is worth 20 marks, but you must check your calculations to get all 20. The pass mark is approximately 70% which is equal to 42 marks out of 60

Marks Each of the three tasks has: 18 marks are available for completing the questions in each task If you make a mistake you will only be penalised for it once. If you then continue to use that incorrect number, but you use it in the right way, then you will get the marks. An additional 2 marks are available IN EACH TASK for showing that you have made some checks. A quick way to guarantee the marks for checking is to do a reverse calculation (see slides 5 and 6)

Reverse calculations Question - How many packs of 20 sweets would you need to for 300 children to have one each? Calculation Check 300 ÷ 20 = 15 15 x 20 = 300 Here the original calculation was a divide, so the reverse needed to check it is a multiply. The check always starts with the answer to the original calculation and applies the reverse operation, so in the original I divided by 20, in the check I multiplied by 20.

Reverse calculations Reverse calculations are useful for exposing mistakes, imagine if I had done the original calculation incorrectly Calculation Check 300 ÷ 20 = 10.5 10.5 x 20 = 210 This time when I applied the reverse calculation, I did not get back to the original number (300). This shows that my original calculation must have been wrong in the first place, and I can now go back and try it again.

Advice Revise before the assessment on all the topics covered on your course. Download practice papers, resources and mark schemes from the OCR website, try the papers then look through the mark scheme to see if your answers are acceptable. Read through the resource pages first, get to know where information is and think about which task you will find easiest. Start with the one you think is easiest.

Advice If you think you have got part of a task wrong. Don’t worry. It is essential that you put down an answer even if you know it is incorrect. This way you can use that answer in later calculations which are worth more marks, and you will only loose out once. i.e if you make the right calculations, even if the numbers are wrong you will still get the later marks. If you don’t put an answer to earlier questions it becomes impossible to answer later ones and you miss out on a lot of marks.

Advice Do a reverse calculation once in every task. (they are worth an extra 10% of the marks) Choose the simplest calculation (usually near the beginning of the task) and do the reverse. Label your reverse calculations as CHECK, so that the marker can see clearly that you have checked your work and give you the extra marks. Try to stick to about 30 minutes per task, but if you know how to answer the longer questions at the end of each task you should do them before moving on.