Three words, GCSE maths exam. It’s enough to fill you with dread and transport you back to a time when you’d be sitting in an exam hall frantically trying to recall Pythagoras's theorem and clutching at the basics of algebra.
Many of us would likely wince at the concept of taking a timed GCSE maths exam again but when content calls and subscribers request videos, in the world of YouTube, you have to respond.
Which brings us to why Youtuber Evan Edinger would film himself taking the exam. The twist? He’s American and even completed his college degree securing a Bachelor of Arts (Mathematics; Statistics and Operation Research) from Rowan University.
However, when it comes to the UK exam system, it leaves him a little stumped.
In the video, Edinger took the Pearson Edexcel Mathematics Higher Tier exam originally from 2018. Opting for the higher paper to really put his mathematical knowledge to the test.
In the beginning intro to the video, Edinger exclaims: “If you guys are doing this for your GCSE, God Bless!” Which sets the tone for the exam paper that he found to be of an unexpected level of difficulty.
This particular exam paper is a no calculator test and gives you an hour and a half to complete all questions worth a total of 80 points.
Alluding to his confidence surrounding the subject, Edinger opted to push himself and to only allow one hour to finish, however.
So, how did he find it?
The video is packed with hilarious comments from him as he makes his way through the test paper, stating things such as "Oh man there’s marks for so many individual things” and “I can’t remember my scientific notation”.
But mostly, the footage is quite informative as he talks his way through most questions, covering his methodology whilst sprinkling in some humour in the clip that has just shy of three million views.
He even skipped a question or two and came back to them towards the end of the hour, a tactic usually promoted by maths teachers to allow you to focus on questions where your knowledge is stronger and you have a higher chance of scoring the most marks you can.
Once he completes the paper he takes to the marking scheme to grade his exam.
He begins with a strong start, dishing out full marks for quite a few questions but it isn't long before he discovers that he didn't score as highly as he imagined, commenting: "The only thing I got here was a pity point to get a centimetre squared, I’ve got one point out of....gosh dang.. it was six points!"
As he makes his way through the marking stage, Edinger also goes on to remark: “Oh my God it was so simple, I just had to say rotation about a point, that’s so much easier than what I was thinking” and even “they wanted a point for expanding multiple odd numbers, I’m really angry about that.”
The total amount of marks available for the exam is 80 and Edinger scored 61, which equates to just over 75 per cent; 76.25 per cent if you want to be painfully accurate.
This translates as a grade eight in the up to date grading system for GCSEs, which for all of us oldies is the equivalent of an A. Grades seven, eight and nine all represent an A grade, so an eight sits in the middle of the bracket.
Following this, the Youtuber talks over his findings from the activity, saying: "So learnings from taking this maths GCSE.. one, the maths is way more difficult than I thought it would be, some of them (the questions) I was like 'oh I know how to do this from my degree' but there was some that were really difficult.
"There were some that were ok and made sense like the algebra, that made sense. The geometry ones make sense, some of those were in there.
"Some of the probability ones I’m like if you can get those, good on you, those were pretty tough but also I feel like I was really rushing and I got it done in an hour."
Rounding up the video, Edinger put forward his opinion around shortening the exam and even finished off with some advice for those due to take their real world exams.
He said: "I don’t know maybe have like five less problems so you have more time to actually spend on those (all of the other questions), that’s just my opinion."
"If you are taking your GCSEs or your A Levels, please spend a lot of time going over previous ones (questions) you’ve finished to make sure you do not get negative points for a simple error in multiplication or forgetting to carry the one, basic things."
Subscribers were quick to point out how challenging the higher exam maths papers can be, with one commenting: "Can we just appreciate that 15 year olds take this test and it isn’t even the hardest maths one at GCSEs, there are further maths papers too."
Another wrote: "Who’s gonna tell him there are two more papers that make up an overall grade, it’s even worse if you do further maths."
