They play a different set each time so I think going three times is not at at all extreme. Glad to hear you are a GW fan.

Great, thanks

Thank you. I didn’t think to look in the F/b, duh.

Haha, nice distinction

Wow!

I taught both methods last year. Every single student preferred the parallel/perpendicular vector method. Maybe it was because I taught that first, but I think the main reason is that method makes sense, it is visual and transparent.

Field trip to Hurn?

If you have the initial and final velocities in vector form, then you can find the angle of deflection using the scalar product

Thank you. Should have checked that document first!

Wow, that’s clever!

Definitely agree re the mark allocation. I just looked up what the E means and you’re right. Damn, I have been telling student for 4 years that they are past paper questions!

It’s marked as a past paper question. In an exam I would be trying to solve the equations analytically not just spot a solution. And I don’t think they would be expecting us to solve a polynomial of degree 6 by using the factor theorem with trial and error.
I think I must be missing something.

How is this a past paper question?

Fair enough

As it happens, we did that today. We discussed afterwards whether it was easier to take a out as a factor or divide through by a. We decided better to divide through.