Pearson Edexcel International GCSE in Mathematics (Specification A) · 4MA1 · Free · no account needed
Standard Form — exam questions
10 original Incandio exam-style questions on Standard Form, 25 marks, about 30 minutes of writing. Each one carries the command word, the tariff and the specification statement it assesses, exactly as a paper presents them. This is an original Incandio practice question, written to reflect the structure and demands of the qualification. It is not an official Pearson Edexcel past-paper question.
This is the practice set for Standard Form — the module that teaches it. Read the module first if the idea is new; come here when you want to find out whether you can turn it into marks. Completely free, no account needed to read.
What these questions ask of you
5 command words run through this set, and on Pearson Edexcel International GCSE Mathematics A each one means something precise. Answering the wrong command is the commonest way a candidate who understands the module still loses the mark.
- Write down (1–2 marks)
- a value that needs no working — read off, recalled or stated
- Work out (1–5 marks)
- a calculated result, with the working that produced it
- Explain why (1–2 marks)
- one short justification — mathematics almost never asks for extended explanation
- Show that (2–5 marks)
- every step of a derivation to a value that is already printed in the question Misread as: stating the printed answer again instead of deriving it
- Calculate (1–5 marks)
- a numerical answer obtained by calculation
Assessed on Paper 1 and Paper 2.
Where these sit in the specification
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE Mathematics A (4MA1) — statement 1.9. Incandio is aligned to this specification; it is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson, and it reproduces none of Pearson's wording.
The 10 questions
Answer them on paper, then open the module's exam practice to have them marked. The mark scheme, the accepted and rejected answers and the annotated model answer are in Incandio and are not printed here — an answer beside its question is not practice.
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(1)Write down
Write down 0.00047 in standard form.
(Total for Question 1 = 1 mark)
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(1)Write down
Write down 6.2 × 10⁵ as an ordinary number.
(Total for Question 2 = 1 mark)
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(2)Work out
Work out (3.2 × 10⁵) × (4.5 × 10⁻²). Give your answer in standard form.
(Total for Question 3 = 2 marks)
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(3)Work out
Work out (7.2 × 10³) ÷ (1.6 × 10⁻²). Give your answer in standard form.
(Total for Question 4 = 3 marks)
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(3)Work out
Work out (8.4 × 10⁶) + (9.3 × 10⁵). Give your answer in standard form.
(Total for Question 5 = 3 marks)
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(1)Explain why
A student gives 34 × 10⁴ as an answer. Explain why this is not in standard form.
(Total for Question 6 = 1 mark)
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(3)Show that
Show that (2.5 × 10⁻³)² can be written as 6.25 × 10⁻⁶.
(Total for Question 7 = 3 marks)
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(4)Work out
One grain of sand has a mass of 1.1 × 10⁻⁵ kg. A stretch of beach holds 2.4 × 10¹² grains of sand. Work out the total mass of the sand. Give your answer in standard form.
(Total for Question 8 = 4 marks)
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(5)Work out
Light travels at 3.0 × 10⁸ metres per second. A star is 4.1 × 10¹⁶ metres from Earth. Work out how many years light takes to travel from the star to Earth. Give your answer correct to 2 significant figures.
You are given — 1 year = 3.15 × 10⁷ seconds
(Total for Question 9 = 5 marks)
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(2)Calculate
Calculate (5.0 × 10⁻⁴) ÷ (2.0 × 10⁻⁷). Give your answer as an ordinary number.
(Total for Question 10 = 2 marks)
Have them marked, then defend the answer
Practice tells you the mark; teaching it back tells you whether you understand it. On Incandio a topic counts as mastered only once you have taught it and defended it.
- Mark these questions — 10 questions, marked on Incandio against the authored scheme, with the mistake you actually made named.
- Teach it — explain Standard Form to Ember, an AI pupil who does not have it yet and asks the awkward question.
- Defend it — argue it against Archimedes over three rounds, marked against descriptors you can read first.
Completely free. No subscriptions, no paywalls, no account needed to start.
Back to the module
- Standard Form — Writing enormous and tiny numbers as a×10ⁿ, and calculating with them confidently — the physicist's notation, on both papers.
- All of Incandio Mathematics · Incandio Exam Practice