To mitigate the difficulties that students have faced over the last 2 years with months of lost learning due to Coronavirus lockdown restrictions, the exam boards are publishing what will be in this year’s maths GCSE papers. The exam boards have not explicitly stated what will be left out of the exams. This is valuable information for teachers in order to help them to plan lessons in the remaining time left until the exams.
We have picked through the specifications of each exam board and their published Summer 2022 support and identified those topics that do not appear to be tested in 2022. This is based on our professional opinion after interpreting all the available information. Certain fundamental topics are assumed to be assessed even though not explicitly mentioned, e.g. basic number skills, units and rounding. This blog post will focus on the Edexcel exam board.
Here’s a summary for each exam board and tier, broken down by topic. We have also included a document of crossover topics which feature in both the Foundation and Higher tier Summer release materials. These can be a useful indication of questions that may appear in the same paper. They are likely to appear at the back of the Foundation paper and the front of the Higher paper. These questions are likely to be the most difficult in the Foundation paper and the easiest in the Higher paper. These will be useful topics for revision for students who are on the 4/5 grade borderline.
This is based on our professional opinion after interpreting all the available information and is not endorsed by Edexcel.
Edexcel
Edexcel Summer 2022 support pages.
Download our mapping of the support document against the Edexcel specification.
Edexcel Foundation Tier
Number
What’s not in the exam:
- Cube roots
- Highest common factor
- Calculations with bounds
- Reciprocals
- BIDMAS question
Algebra
What’s not in the exam:
- Expanding double brackets
- Cubic and reciprocal graphs
- Non-linear sequences
Ratio, proportion and rates of change
What’s not in the exam:
- Inverse proportion
- Pressure
Geometry
What’s not in the exam:
- Constructions
- Loci
- Congruence
- Similarity
- Rotational symmetry
- Circumference of a circle
- Arc length
- Sector area
- SOHCAHTOA
- Vectors
- Area and perimeter of composite shapes
- Nets
- Volume and surface area of spheres, cones, pyramids
- Conversions with volume/capacity
Probability*
What’s not in the exam:
- Venn diagrams
* “Probability” is quoted as a specific topic in the guidance so ruling out other topics is difficult.
Statistics*
What’s not in the exam:
- Drawing scatter graphs
- Drawing a time series graph
- Drawing a pie chart
- Sampling
* Interpreting a graph is quoted as a specific topic, which could be any type of graph.
Formula sheet:
Note that the circumference formula and Trigonometric formulae are on the formula sheet but are potentially not required in the exam.
Edexcel Higher Tier
Number
What’s not in the exam:
- Estimating powers and roots
- Estimation
- HCF and LCM
Algebra
What’s not in the exam:
- Proofs
- Plotting cubic, reciprocal and exponential graphs
- Equations of circles
- Linear sequences
- Non-linear sequences
Ratio, proportion and rates of change
What’s not in the exam:
- Scale drawings
- Percentage error
Geometry
What’s not in the exam:
- Constructions
- Loci
- Congruence
- Symmetry
- Angles in parallel lines
- Surface area of spheres, cones and cylinders
- Arc length
- Bearings
- Nets
- Plans and elevations
- Similar volume
- 3D Pythagoras’s Theorem
Probability*
What’s not in the exam:
- Frequency Trees
* “Probability” is quoted as a specific topic in the guidance so ruling out other topics is difficult.
Statistics
What’s not in the exam:
- Sampling
- Scatter graphs
- Time series graphs
- Pie charts
- Bar charts
- Two-way tables
Read our other blog posts on GCSE maths, science and English exam updates here.
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