People stumped by 'strangest' Year 11 GCSE maths question they'd no clue how to answer

A tutor has left people scratching their heads with the “strangest” GCSE maths question on an exam paper.

can be a stressful, daunting experience for many and mature students. For a lot of people who pass their studies, they no longer encounter exam-style questions in their day-to-day lives and then have little training or recall on how to approach them.

While some subjects, like English Literature, leave room for interpretation and more subjective or explorative exam questions, maths is different. In most cases, particularly at GCSE level, .

In a bid to demystify some of the more complex or unusual questions popping up on exam papers, PLS Tutors have taken to to break down the techniques required to correctly obtain those elusive right answers across multiple subjects.

In a recent video, the tutors shared the maths question: “The bearing of A from B is 098°. Find the bearing of B from A.” A reciprocal bearing is a bearing which is 180° different from a given bearing, or is measured in the opposite direction. It can also be known as a back bearing.

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The question is then broken down, with the tutor explaining: “This is one of the strangest questions on a GCSE maths paper and you definitely need it to get grades like this (78/80)”.

The question is then broken down as the tutor continues, explaining how to find the answer in detail by drawing out angles and connecting them. After showing the method, the tutor reveals the correct answer is 278.

People flocked to the comments section to share their thoughts. Some remained baffled, even after watching the video breakdown. One person simply said: “Straight over my head.”

Another pondered the purpose of such exam questions with: “Why do we have maths questions like this when they don’t serve any purpose in life”. A third quipped: “Do you know what a mortgage rate is? No, but I know the bearing of point B to A if the bearing of A to B is 98°”.

Others were grateful for the video and now felt as though they understood the correct way to approach such a question. One person said: “You made it so easy, can I re-sit and get a 9?”

Another said: “Wow. I was terrible at maths, only took a basic arithmetic O level. But I understood this completely!” Agreeing, another commented: “This made sense ...why did I not get taught this way some 30 odd years ago…”

But others had a “simpler” method for finding the correct answer more easily. One person said: “Or just add 180 to 98.” Another replied: “I came here to say this - doubted myself at first as thought I must be mistaken as so ridiculously easy.”

A third person explained: “For reciprocal bearings I always add 180° (and if the result is greater than 360°, deduct 360°).”

Agreeing, someone else commented: “Or just add 180 to get the reciprocal bearing.”

Offering a different perspective, one person added: “maths is about showing not only the answer but how you got there. This was well explained and if by chance the final sum was wrong points are often awarded if the method is correct”.