9694 · June 2024
Thinking Skills
In general, the candidates engaged well with the paper. There were some very good scripts showing an excellent proficiency in problem solving.
Source: Cambridge International
Cohort performance
Session statistics from official examination reports
No data available in official reports
Key examiner messages
Top priorities from the principal examiner before you revise
Candidates should be encouraged to show their working and not just write down answers.
Most questions are worth more than a single mark, and credit is available for intermediate steps in the working, even though the final answer may be incorrect.
Tidy presentation of work will not only help the candidate to work accurately but will also help the Examiner to follow the thought process of the candidate with a view to being able to award partial credit.
Candidates are provided with answer lines after each part question and they should write their solutions, and not just their final answer on these lines.
Question difficulty map
How candidates performed on each question in this series
Report
Examiner report
Assessment objectives
Skill and AO weighting from official examiner commentary
No data available in official reports
Method marks watchlist
Where working, steps, or method marks were commonly lost
No data available in official reports
Recurring mistakes across years
Themes examiners flag in multiple recent sessions for this subject
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Question choice intelligence
Mean scores and popularity for optional questions (HKDSE electives)
No data available in official reports
Level exemplars
What candidate scripts at each grade level looked like
No data available in official reports
Grade & admission context
How marks relate to grade thresholds and entry standards
No data available in official reports
Deep insights
What top candidates did
Techniques and approaches examiners rewarded in this series
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2…
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2024 Principal Examiner Report for Teachers © 2024 THINKING SKILLS Paper 9694/11 Problem Solving Key messages Candidates should be encouraged to show their working and not just write down answers. Most questions are worth more than a single mark, and credit is available for intermediate steps in the working, even though the final answer may be incorrect. Tidy presentation of work will not only help the candidate to work accurately but will also help the Examiner to follow the thought process of the candidate with a view to being able to award partial credit. Candidates are provided with answer lines after each part question and they should write their solutions, and not just their final answer on these lines. When an explanation is asked for in a question where numbers are involved, as is usual on Paper 1, it is almost always the case that candidates should engage with these numbers as the core of their explanation. General comments In general, the candidates engaged well with the paper. There were some very good scripts showing an excellent proficiency in problem solving. Most candidates offered good responses to at least some of the questions on the paper. It was particularly pleasing to see that when candidates were not able to solve earlier questions, they persevered and often earned marks in the later questions. As always, candidates are advised to read the questions carefully and take note of each piece of information. It is particularly important to remember that the initial stem of a question applies to the whole of the question. Comments on specific questions Question 1 About 40 per cent of the candidates scored full marks for this question. One common error was to work out how long the library was open each day and divide this by 20 minutes to ascertain the number of slots per day. This does not take into consideration the constraints due to the break time, which necessitates the morning and afternoon sessions being looked at separately. Another common error was to give the number of slots available on one computer, ignoring the fact that there are five computers. Many candidates gave a list of start times for each slot. This approach often led to arithmetical errors. Another common error in this approach was to omit counting the number of slots, simply leaving a list of times. Question 2 (a) This part was usually answered correctly. (b) Many candidates ignored the first words in this part, ‘For what range of distances’ and attempted instead to answer the question ‘Will the new pricing system make less profit than the old one?’ This led to numerous different answers based on profit and loss but taking no account of distances. Some candidates simply gave the answer ‘yes’. Of those candidates who attempted to answer the correct question, most were successful in identifying that 60 km was the threshold distance.
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2…
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2024 Principal Examiner Report for Teachers © 2024 (c) Only 20 per cent of candidates gave the correct answer of $9. Over one-third of candidates omitted this part. The most popular incorrect answer was $5, usually given without any working to indicate the candidate’s thinking. Question 3 Many candidates had a good grasp of the scenario in this problem. (a) 50 per cent of candidates answered this part correctly. There were two common approaches. The first and most efficient solution was to add the total playing time (90 minutes), the total gap time between pieces (6 lots of 2 minutes) and the interval time (25 minutes), giving a total of 127 minutes and a finish time for the concert of 21:37. The common error seen in this approach was to add one or two extra gaps of 2 minutes around the interval. The second type of solution involved adding on the duration of each piece and each gap individually, so lists of timings were seen. This approach was fine in principle, but often led to arithmetical slips and a final time that was 1 minute out. (b) 55 per cent of candidates gave a correct example of how the pieces could be split to achieve the desired equality in the durations of the two halves of the concert. The common error was to give an example with 3 pieces in one half and 5 pieces in the other. While this works with respect to equal durations, it ignores the information given in the stem of the question, that the orchestra will play four pieces in each half. (c) Less than a third of candidates were successful in this part. Many candidates seemed to understand what was required, but they were not able to deal with the percentages accurately. The most efficient approach is to recognise that the total playing time for the first four pieces is 50 minutes, and then take 5 per cent from this to give Sam’s time, together with a similar calculation for Tom’s time with 10 per cent added onto 40 minutes. A large number of candidates opted to deal with each piece individually. This led to some tricky decimals and errors in converting these decimals to times. Some candidates took an easier, incorrect route, believing that a 10 per cent increase on four pieces and a 5 per cent decrease on four other pieces leads to a 5 per cent increase overall, with no consideration of the different durations of the pieces. Other candidates applied the increase and decrease percentages to the intervals as well as the pieces. (d) The key to solving this part is to realise that the duration of the concert is maximised by having Tom conduct the four longest pieces and Sam the four shortest pieces. A good number of candidates did realise this, but again many ran into trouble in calculating the percentages. Question 4 (a) Less than half of the candidates obtained the correct date of 27 March. Of these, many had the incorrect day of the week with the correct date, but the mark was still awarded in this situation. It was surprising that candidates did not seem to be able to use a calendar correctly. The start date of Monday 1 March should have led the candidate to realise that 8, 15, 22 and 29 would all be Mondays in March. The most common ‘correct’ answer was Monday 27 March. (b) Follow through from the candidate’s answer to part (a) enabled slightly more candidates to be awarded the marks in this part. The key step is to realise that for Matt and Andy to arrive in Waverley on the same day, Matt must leave Swanley 15 days earlier than Andy. Partial credit was awarded to those candidates who rounded the 15.7 days required by Matt up to 16, rather than down to 15. Question 5 About one-third of candidates answered this correctly. Most candidates were able to deduce that the maximum amount spent in the shops was for 3 items at $25 each in 4 shops, giving a total of $300. The maximum amount per grandchild is when the fewest grandchildren (3) are considered. Adding on the maximum amount $2 for each of 3 ice creams leads to a total of $306 which is equivalent to $102 per grandchild.
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2…
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2024 Principal Examiner Report for Teachers © 2024 The most common incorrect answers were $302 and $310. The first of these comes from adding the cost of only one ice cream to $300, and the second from adding the cost of 5 ice creams to $300. Question 6 Many candidates were able to deduce that, since Sally’s score was frozen after question number 42, this was her 5th incorrect answer, so she must have either answered correctly or passed 37 questions. The next step proved to be more challenging, as candidates needed to search for a combination of correct answers (worth 5 points each) and passes (a deduction of 2 points each), that would lead to a total of 157. The most common error was to think that 37 was the final answer. Question 7 (a) 50 per cent of the candidates answered this part correctly. Knowing that each of the five friends spent something, the easiest approach to find the smallest total amount is to say that Clive spent $1, then David $2, Harry $4, Katie $8 and Angela $13, a total of $28. The most common incorrect answer was $23, coming from allocating $0 to Clive, with other amounts $1, $3, $7 and $12, thereby ignoring the instruction that everyone bought something. (b) About 50 per cent of the candidates found the correct list of five values to take the total amount over $100, namely $16, $17, $19, $23 and $28, but then gave the incorrect answer. This was often $28 (Angela’s amount) or $103 (the total amount). Candidates should be careful to return to the question to check what is being asked for (Katie’s amount) before identifying their final response. (c) This part was found to be more challenging. The key was to put together the fact that Katie spends twice as much as David and that Katie spends $6 more than David, the latter from the original stem of the question. The only possibility is that David spends $6 and Katie $12. This leads to a total of $48 for all five friends. Question 8 (a) Most candidates deduced that Gio’s two marks from the judges must sum to 15. As each of the two numbers had to be between 1 and 10, there are three possible pairs: 10 and 5, 9 and 6, 8 and 7. The most common error was to give only one of these possibilities. Another, less common, error was to give a list of all pairs of integers that sum to 15, so 14 and 1, 13 and 2 etc., ignoring the fact that the single maximum score is 10. (b) Most candidates answered this correctly. (c) Candidates needed to make a series of deductions using the given information. For Kiran to come 6th in the event, his final score must have been 93, 94 or 95; that is, between 92 and 96. Since Kiran scored 51 for his first dive, he must have scored 42, 43 or 44 for his second dive. Since the difficulty rating for the second dive was a whole number, Kiran’s score must be a multiple of 2, 3, 4 or 5. 43 is a prime number, so we have only to consider 42 and 44 with difficulty 3 and 4 respectively. (2 could not produce a sufficiently big final score). Taking into account the score of 6 from Judge 1, the score from Judge 2 must be 8 or 5 respectively. Many candidates made a good start on this process, and one-third completed it successfully. The common error was to deduce a single possible score of 8 or a single possible score of 5. Some candidates got as far as deducing the possibilities for the score for Kiran’s second dive as 42–44, but then abandoned their solution. Question 9 (a) 50 per cent of the candidates identified at least one way in which a player could win the game in the first turn and, of these candidates, 50 per cent were able to identify all three possible ways. (b) Only a minority of candidates were able to make much progress in this part. Some identified that after the three turns Sara had 8 marbles but did not know what to do with this information. Some candidates went on to give some of the possible combinations of hiding and guessing numbers, but rarely included all of the possibilities. The common error here was to omit 0 as a valid number of marbles to hide or guess. This led to the incorrect answer of 12.
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2…
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2024 Principal Examiner Report for Teachers © 2024 Question 10 There are two approaches to solving this problem. The first is to identify the total cost of the magazines as $263, so with his savings of $65, Ben needs another $198. Alternatively, Ben has spent $23 from his savings of $65 so has $42 left. He needs to buy another 24 issues of the magazine at $10 each, so he needs to save another $198. In either approach, Ben needs to save $198 in 6 lots of 4 weeks, so $33 every 4 weeks. These two approaches were attempted roughly equally by candidates. About one-third of these candidates earned some credit for partial solutions but only 17 per cent were able to complete the solution. Question 11 One-third of the candidates did not make any response to any part of this question. (a) In both parts of this question, about half of the candidates who offered a response gave the correct answers. The common error was to give the total value of the coins rather than the number of coins. (b) Only a minority of candidates made a meaningful attempt in this part. The approach was usually to search for the two numbers of coins that satisfied both the weight condition and that there were 100 more 20 cent coins than 50 cent coins. Most searches remained incomplete and were abandoned. Question 12 This question proved to be very challenging and only a small number of candidates were able to make any progress towards identifying even some of the 27 possible references. Half of the candidates offered no response, and the other half usually wrote down two or three attempts at references, but these were almost always incorrect. It appeared that most candidates were not able to grasp the scenario. Some misinterpreted ‘first letter’ as ‘a letter in the first position’. Other candidates seemed to write down random incorrect references. Question 13 This question also proved to be very challenging and very few candidates were able to produce convincing explanations in either part. About 40 per cent of candidates offered no response. (a) The explanation required in this part requires only the third of the four given statements, ‘every candidate who has a sports card also has a dinner card’. From this it can be deduced that there are not more sports cards than dinner cards. So, there are at least as many dinner cards as sports cards, and possibly more. So, the teacher’s claim must be incorrect. Having identified the correct and relevant statement, the common error was to deduce that it implied that there must be equal numbers of sports cards and dinner cards. This is an incorrect deduction and does not imply that the teacher’s claim is incorrect. (b) Very few valid explanations were seen in this part. The common answer was to state that more information was needed for a decision about false or true to be made. A satisfactory explanation will almost always involve engagement with the numbers of candidates with none or all three of the types of card, given earlier in the question.
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2…
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2024 Principal Examiner Report for Teachers © 2024 THINKING SKILLS Paper 9694/12 Problem Solving Key messages Candidates should be encouraged to show their working and not just write down answers. Most questions are worth more than a single mark, and credit is available for intermediate steps in the working, even though the final answer may be incorrect. Tidy presentation of work will not only help the candidate to work accurately but will also help the Examiner to follow the thought process of the candidate with a view to being able to award partial credit. Candidates are provided with answer lines after each part question and they should write their solutions, and not just their final answer on these lines. When an explanation is asked for in a question where numbers are involved, as is usual on Paper 1, it is almost always the case that candidates should engage with these numbers as the core of their explanation. General comments In general candidates engaged very well with the paper. Many candidates attempted most of the questions and there were many answers of a pleasingly good standard. Most of the candidates were able to engage with at least some of the questions in a meaningful way. Comments on specific questions Question 1 Most candidates found this a straightforward start to the paper, with the majority giving a correct answer of 1530 minutes or 25 hours 30 minutes or even 1 day 1 hour and 30 minutes. Many of the candidates who did not arrive at the correct answer received some credit for giving a correct expression for the time taken for Kevin to make either the first 10 birdhouses or the second 10 birdhouses. Question 2 (a) Almost all candidates were able to give one of the 4 possible ways of making six trays of three canapés and a number of candidates gave 2 or 3 of the possible ways. Very few candidates gave all 4 possible ways. (b) Most candidates correctly answered that another caviar canapé should be made, with many giving a correct reason which was usually based on a possible way given in part (a). Depending on the possibility used, they answered either that there were 2 caviar canapés left over in part (a), so another caviar canapé would enable a whole tray of caviar canapés to be made, or that 1 avocado canapé and 1 salmon canapé were left over in part (a), so another caviar canapé would enable a whole tray mixed of canapés to be made. A minority of candidates tried to explain why a salmon or an avocado canapé should be made. Question 3 (a) Most candidates answered this part correctly, though a few only indicated the number of bongs in each score and others added the numbers incorrectly.
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2…
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2024 Principal Examiner Report for Teachers © 2024 (b) Almost all candidates gained partial credit for giving at least 4 of the required numbers of points, but very few gave all 7 possibilities, with most, though not all, omitting the possibility that the Dolphins could have scored 0 points. Question 4 (a) The most common answer to this part was $34.50, which is the total cost when either one Family, one Group and 2 Child tickets or 2 Family, 2 Adult and 1 Child ticket are bought. Only a minority of candidates identified that the cheapest total cost comes from buying 1 Group ticket (for 5 adults), 5 Child tickets and 1 Adult ticket, for a total cost of $34. (b) There were some completely correct answers to this part. Some candidates gave an answer based on Monday–Friday prices rather than the Saturday prices specified in the question, and others found the overall cost of the tickets was $19.50 but were unable to work out correctly the additional amount given by the local government; partial credit was awarded in each of these cases. Question 5 (a) (i) This was done well, though some candidates thought that the number of parcels that would fit into one box (6) was the number of boxes required, and ended up with a final answer of $150. Most candidates did this by consideration of the dimensions of the parcels and the boxes, though some calculated the volume of a box and a parcel and divided – not always correctly. (ii) Almost all answers correctly explained that the weight of each parcel could be no more than 0.5 kg. However, some candidates gave insufficient answers based on what they were told in the question, for example ‘the parcels were identical’ or ‘the total weight of 6 parcels was 3 kg’. (b) Many candidates realised that the two parcels could most economically fit into a Type B box and gave the correct answer of $15. Question 6 (a) (i) Only a minority of candidates identified that one of the days for training has to be Friday because that is the only day Den works. Wrong answers often pointed out that most people work on Fridays. (ii) Some correct answers began by eliminating Thursday because it is consecutive with Friday and Monday because there are only 3 people at work that day, before pointing out that the training would have to be done on Tuesday because Ann does not work on Wednesday. Others took a more direct approach by pointing out that Ann and Eva do not work on Friday and the only day they both work is Tuesday. There was a wide variety of answers identifying the wrong day, or giving a partial or an incorrect reason. (b) This part was answered correctly by many candidates. Question 7 (a) Most candidates listed the different combinations that could be used, though not all applied the restriction about metals correctly, often ending up with an answer of 10 names needed. Some candidates duplicated the combinations (for example, GZ and ZG), although some compensated for this and arrived at the correct answer. Candidates gained partial credit for listing some correct combinations; this could be done using either the letters G, Z, S, O and A defined in the question or their own recognisable code – usually R, Blu, Bla, Y and W or similar. (b) This question was found very difficult with many candidates omitting it or getting it wrong. Partial credit was allowed for candidates who forgot the constraint about metals, or who did not use the fact that, for example, the pattern AZS is different from the pattern SZA.
Command word playbook
How to match each command word to the expected response style
No data available in official reports
Time traps
Sections where candidates spent disproportionate time relative to marks
No data available in official reports
Syllabus traceability
Topics linked to questions and mark weighting in this session
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MCQ trap analytics
Commonly chosen wrong options from examiner commentary
No data available in official reports
Topic heatmap across years
Mark concentration by topic and exam year for this subject
No data available in official reports
Difficulty trend
How session difficulty has shifted across recent years
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Paper comparison
Marks and duration breakdown across papers in this session
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Marks you can still earn
Where valid approaches outside the mark scheme may still gain credit
No data available in official reports
Practise what examiners flagged
Target weak topics from this report inside the Revui app
Self-diagnostic checklist
Key actions before you sit this paper — copy and tick off as you revise
- 1Message
Candidates should be encouraged to show their working and not just write down answers.
- 2Message
Most questions are worth more than a single mark, and credit is available for intermediate steps in the working, even though the final answer may be incorrect.
- 3Message
Tidy presentation of work will not only help the candidate to work accurately but will also help the Examiner to follow the thought process of the candidate with a view to being able to award partial credit.
- 4Message
Candidates are provided with answer lines after each part question and they should write their solutions, and not just their final answer on these lines.
- 5Strength
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2…: Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2024 Princi
- 6Strength
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2…: Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2024 Princi
- 7Strength
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2…: Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2024 Princi
Teacher briefing pack
One-page session summary for tutors and classroom review
June 2024 2024
Thinking Skills
Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level 9694 Thinking Skills June 2024 Principal Examiner Report for Teachers © 2024 THINKING SKILLS Paper 9694/11 Problem Solving Key messages Candidates should be encouraged to show their working and not just write down ans
Candidates should be encouraged to show their working and not just write down answers.
Most questions are worth more than a single mark, and credit is available for intermediate steps in the working, even though the final answer may be incorrect.
Tidy presentation of work will not only help the candidate to work accurately but will also help the Examiner to follow the thought process of the candidate with a view to being able to award partial credit.
Examiner insights
General comments
- •In general, the candidates engaged well with the paper.
- •There were some very good scripts showing an excellent proficiency in problem solving.
- •Most candidates offered good responses to at least some of the questions on the paper.
- •It was particularly pleasing to see that when candidates were not able to solve earlier questions, they persevered and often earned marks in the later questions.
- •As always, candidates are advised to read the questions carefully and take note of each piece of information.