You can do the maths and still not get the mark.

Beat the Traps is revision built around the mistakes Edexcel examiners report year after year: the domain nobody stated, the root nobody rejected, the answer left in degrees when the question was in radians. Each one is a mark lost by students who could do the maths.

Sign in with the username on your slip, or the email address you paid with. Teachers, parents and tutors sign in with their email address.

A trap screen from the Functions module, titled "Inverse: not finished until you state the domain". It shows that the trap was asked in four sittings, a short explanation, a worked example giving the domain and range of f, and multiple-choice options. — **Functions, trap 3 of 3.** Every trap names the exam sittings it came up in and how badly it was answered, works through it with you, and gives you practice questions that explain every wrong answer.

Examiner note — Inverse Functions

The domain is a separate mark on parts whose wording never asks for it. Reports across four sittings say candidates rearrange, write the inverse and stop. One calls it a point made in many previous reports.

From the examiner note in P10, Functions. Edexcel 9MA0/02 Q1 (June 2018) · 9MA0/01 Q7 (June 2023) · 9MA0/01 Q8 (June 2024) — examiner reports and mark schemes, summarised.

What a trap is

A named mistake, not a topic.

Revision usually sorts itself by topic, which is how you end up practising what you can already do. A trap is sorted the other way round, by where the marks are actually lost.

Each trap shows you what the mistake looks like in a real question, why it is so tempting, what the examiners said about it, and the fix that keeps the mark. Then you practise it until it stops catching you, and every wrong answer you pick is explained on its own terms: not “incorrect, try again”, but what was right about it and the one thing that cost the mark.

Two answer options from the Functions module. One is marked incorrect in red, one correct in green. Beneath them a box headed "Why that’s incorrect" reads: the interval is exactly right but the variable is incorrect, a domain is the inputs, so it is written in x. — The interval was right. The variable was not, and that is the whole mark.

What is inside

39 ModulesPure, Statistics, Mechanics and exam discipline

139 TrapsEach one evidenced by examiner reports and mark schemes

129 Exam Ready questionsEdexcel style exam questions with a mark scheme written to teach as well as mark

The library

Pure Papers 1 and 2 24 modules · 87 traps

Stats Paper 3 — Statistics 7 modules · 26 traps

Mech Paper 3 — Mechanics 7 modules · 26 traps

Exam Exam discipline, all three papers 18 quick checks on the marks lost before the maths starts

How a module runs

1 Theory cards The rules the traps depend on, with the formulae given in the booklet marked, so you know which ones you have to remember.

2 Three-minute warm-up Eight true-or-false checks that show what you really know before it costs you anything, and point you to the best trap to start on.

3 The traps One at a time, in the order they build on each other, with every answer you pick explained and a chance to try again.

4 Exam Ready Full exam-style questions with a mark scheme written to teach: every line of working, what each M, A and B mark is for, and a hint under the steps that carry the teaching.

A 30-second look at how a trap works.

Where the traps come from

Nothing here is a hunch about what students find hard.

A trap only earns its place once the same mistake has been found in all three sources for the same skill: the question paper, the mark scheme and the examiner report. The papers are Edexcel 9MA0 and 8MA0, from June 2018 to June 2025.

✓The question paper

✓The mark scheme

✓The examiner report

Who made this

A maths teacher who is still teaching in the classroom.

I have taught A level Maths since 2009 and have been Head of A level Maths at three schools, one of them named State Secondary School of the Decade for the South East.

Beat the Traps came out of marking the same mistakes year after year, then going back through every Edexcel paper, mark scheme and examiner report from 2018 to 2025 to find out whether they were only my students’ mistakes or everybody’s. The 139 traps are the ones that were everybody’s.

Your account

Through your school, or on your own.

If your school has Beat the Traps, your teacher gives you a username and a starting password, and you choose your own password the first time you sign in. Your progress saves as you go and is shared with your teachers, so they can see which traps you have beaten and help with the ones you have not.

Is your school not using it yet? Show your teacher: everything they need is on the schools page. Or get your own: if you are 16 or over you can buy it yourself, sign in with your email address, and nobody else sees your progress. A parent, carer or tutor can also buy it for you.

It works on a phone, a tablet or a laptop, and your progress follows you from one to another.

Teachers: the teacher guide shows you round.

For parents and tutors

They get their own login. You see where the marks are going.

Buy Beat the Traps for your child, or for a student you tutor, and they get their own username and starting password. You get your own sign-in, to a screen that shows which traps they have beaten, which ones are still catching them, and when they last used it. You can reset their password if they forget it, and their library tells them that you can see their progress.

The screen a parent or tutor sees, for a made-up student, Ella Hart. Under her name, username and end date: 9 traps beaten and 1 module finished. Her row is open, showing 31 of 40 warm-up questions right, one Exam Ready done, and a bar for each module she has started: Indices 3 of 3 traps, Quadratics 3 of 5, Inequalities and Set Notation 1 of 5, Trigonometry 1 2 of 3, and Exponentials and Logarithms 0 of 5. — **What you see.** The traps they have beaten, and the ones still catching them, shown here for a made-up student.

The library of a made-up student, Ella Hart. Under the heading Your library, a line reads: Mrs Hart can see your progress. Below it, a card to pick up where she left off in Inequalities and Set Notation, the Pure, Statistics, Mechanics and Exam skills tabs, and the first module, Indices, with three of three traps beaten and Exam Ready done. — **What they see.** Their own library, with what is left to beat and a line telling them who can see their progress.

Buying for more than one student? Each gets their own login and their own end date, on the one account.

Price

£39 12 monthsEvery module, trap and Exam Ready question for a year.

£65 24 monthsBoth years of the course, if you are in Year 12.

Get Beat the Traps

At a school with Beat the Traps? Ask your teacher before you buy.

You can get a full refund within 7 days of buying, used or not: email hello@sakatismaths.co.uk.