How to Use the 0606 Formula List

The 0606 paper prints a short list of formulae at the front, but it’s deliberately limited. Treating it as a safety net for everything is a mistake: most of what a candidate needs isn’t on it. Knowing exactly what the sheet does and doesn’t carry is part of being properly prepared.

What’s provided, and what isn’t

The list gives a few standard results, such as the binomial expansion, as a backstop. But the everyday toolkit is not on it and must be known cold:

• the log laws,
• the differentiation and integration rules for the standard functions,
• most trigonometric identities, including the reciprocal ones,
• the equation of a circle and conditions like the discriminant.

(Check the exact list on your session’s paper, but the principle holds: the core toolkit is yours to memorise.)

Don’t outsource what should be automatic

A student who reaches mid-question and goes hunting the sheet for a log law that isn’t there loses time and rhythm. The formulae you use constantly need to be automatic, recalled without thought, so the exam is spent solving, not searching. The sheet is for the occasional formula you don’t use often enough to have memorised, not for the daily tools.

Use the sheet efficiently when you do need it

For the formulae that are provided, use them well: read them exactly (a misread sign or index corrupts everything downstream), and copy the relevant one into your working before substituting, so the method mark is visibly there. A glance to confirm a provided formula is fine; a scramble to find a core one you should know is not.

Knowing the list is part of revision

Because the sheet’s contents are fixed, a well-prepared student knows in advance what it carries and, more importantly, what it doesn’t, so nothing on the day is a surprise. Building that memorised toolkit, and testing it under exam conditions, is exactly what good revision does. A specialist can check which formulae your child still leans on the sheet for, and drill them to automatic. A trial class can start that. Message us on WhatsApp to book.