AQA GCSE Maths Paper 3: calculator paper guide

AQA GCSE Maths Paper 3 is a calculator paper. It is 80 marks and 1 hour 30 minutes long, on Foundation and Higher.

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Paper 3 at a glance

What the marks are spent on

Share of marks by strand, from the specification's published weightings.

How the questions are laid out

Across 10 recent Foundation and 10 Higher sittings, Foundation Paper 3 averaged 29.4 questions (between 25 and 31) and Higher averaged 27.5 (between 23 and 30). On Foundation, 24% of questions are 1 mark, 20% of questions are 2 marks, 31% of questions are 3 marks, 16% of questions are 4 marks. On Higher, 24% of questions are 1 mark, 13% of questions are 2 marks, 31% of questions are 3 marks, 19% of questions are 4 marks. Questions generally get harder through the paper.

How to revise for Paper 3

• Practise writing the calculation you typed, not only the answer, so you can earn method marks.
• Check your calculator is in degrees for trigonometry.
• Sit a timed paper: 80 marks in 1 hour 30 minutes is about 1.1 minutes a mark.
• Read the command words so you know what "show that" and "explain" ask for.

Topics where a calculator is useful

These Yumio topic pages are marked calculator. Any topic can appear on any paper, so use this as a starting point.

Questions students ask

Other papers: AQA GCSE Maths Paper 1 · AQA GCSE Maths Paper 2 · All AQA GCSE Maths papers