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Tom Bowler

@ridermeister.bsky.social

880 followers 1.1K following 610 posts

Dad, Husband, Maths Teacher & Tutor, UKMT Trustee/Volunteer, STEP Marking Supervisor, Lego Collector, Twisty Puzzler and Switch 2 Gamer! 🧮

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Tom Bowler @ridermeister.bsky.social · 20d

That time of year again...

Please share the below booklet with any pupils thinking of studying maths at universities that use interviews as part of the admissions process.

www.drfrost.org/downloadable...

#MathsToday #AlevelMaths

Dr Frost Learning

Dr Frost provides an online learning platform, teaching resources, videos and a bank of exam questions, all for free.

www.drfrost.org

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Tom Bowler @ridermeister.bsky.social · 1d

I love this question, perfect for Year 7 to Year 13!

Tom Bowler @ridermeister.bsky.social · 1d

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Tom Bowler @ridermeister.bsky.social · 1d

😭

Tom Bowler @ridermeister.bsky.social · 2d

Hard for the little people to get justice against the big machine that is Pearson! How much are they worth again? Bizarre that other exam boards are charities.

Tom Bowler @ridermeister.bsky.social · 2d

I'd love to know how they dodged that particular bullet! I'm hoping Ofqual did take action but it isn't yet published. Surely there was at least another hefty fine for Pearson (as there was last year).

Tom Bowler @ridermeister.bsky.social · 18d

I like the link with Geometric series and these factirisations. Amazing how many students don't realise they can already factorise 1-x^n.

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Tom Bowler @ridermeister.bsky.social · 20d

Dr Frost Learning

Dr Frost provides an online learning platform, teaching resources, videos and a bank of exam questions, all for free.

www.drfrost.org

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Tom Bowler @ridermeister.bsky.social · 20d

We were happy to stop at 2x2, but appreciate we could go further!

Tom Bowler @ridermeister.bsky.social · 20d

I posted the below yesterday and derived the unique 2x2 determinant from these properties.

Tom Bowler @ridermeister.bsky.social · 21d

Mostly my experience on Bluesky has been very positive and people have engaged well. Character limit means I often don't flesh out a context, but also I like people to ask. It's like starting up a conversation in the maths office.

Tom Bowler @ridermeister.bsky.social · 21d

I think the 3x3 expansion looks ugly.

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Tom Bowler @ridermeister.bsky.social · 21d

You may prefer my #MathsToday post from today.

Tom Bowler @ridermeister.bsky.social · 21d

I'm coming at this an educator of young people likely to embark on university degrees in the UK. Many will be presented with ugly notation and I want to give them the skills to decode it. I can also discuss the drawbacks of such notation at the same time. My description to the class was 'hideous'.

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Tom Bowler @ridermeister.bsky.social · 21d

That was my second approach after I realised that finding the gradient in terms of x and y was ugly! I did as an aside find another point, where the gradient was unique in terms of x (I could do that much more easily as dx/dt is at the point in question).