The 'should I take A-level further maths?' megathread

If you love maths, you will float, if you like maths, you will sink.

I'm in year 13 and I do Further Maths. FM at AS isn't hard, most of the concepts are very simple and easy to understand. At A2 it does get a lot harder, but FM helps a lot with normal Maths. I'd definitely recommend taking it and if you put the effort in, you'll definitely be able to cope with it.

I do Maths and Further Maths A2 at the moment. I don't find further maths to be much harder than normal, if you end up doing the mechanics modules (3 - 5) especially, it gets hard. Otherwise further maths is really just different maths to normal. Not much harder, you should be fine. There's a boy in my class who got an A at GCSE maths and didn't do that further GCSE thing (I didn't do it either - no idea what it is) and he's getting straight As in maths and further with a fair few 100%s, but this is probably because he enjoys it and like studying it. If you enjoy it, studying for it shouldn't be hard, and the exams are EASYY. Just do past papers, the exams are the same every year.

You should take it, I think you would probably enjoy it, I don't see why you wouldn't if you like maths. If you revise properly you can easily get A/A* at A2, in my opinion it is one of the easiest A level you can do if you know how to revise it.

Yeh, what I like about maths is that it is not subjective - atleast not at A Level (I think). I think I will take further Maths. And I'm prepared to study for it. Also, the idea of being able to spend so much time learning maths in a weird way makes me kinda happy - It means I'll be able to really learn the theories and that (How sad is that). Cheers

I got A in GCSE and I'm doing further maths. One thing I'd say is that GCSE grades aren't usually indicative of A-level performance - I got the lowest GCSE grade in my further maths class (I think the other 4 all got A*) yet I'm probably on the highest UMS now. In FP1, which is the first exclusive further module, they got D, C, C, A and I got an A, for example. So you could be ok. I say could - there's not really any telling until you give it a go. Obviously, getting a U or a D or something at GCSE might be a different case. There is a big jump between GCSE and A-level - that goes for most (if not all) subjects, so provided you work smart, you might be able to do it.

You can take up to 4 applied modules in further maths - those can also be part of the ordinary maths A-level, so only the two or three (I think some boards have four?) further pure modules are exclusive to further maths. They introduce more areas of maths (complex numbers, polar coordinates, proof by induction, hyperbolic functions, matrices yah de yah etc etc) and explore other areas in greater depth (differential equations, summations of series, vectors). Have a look at your board's specification to see exactly what topics you'll be doing, maybe take a look at some of them to see if they look good to you.

Regarding the teacher not being good: if the teacher truly is rubbish, then get help elsewhere. Find another teacher to get help from. Ask on here. Try teaching yourself sections if that teacher's that horrendous.

I think 3 hours a day's a bit extreme. I'm teaching myself FP3 at the moment and I do less than that. But don't expect it to be easy, because it's not. If you do decide to take it, you can always drop it if you don't enjoy it/find it too hard. The fact that you enjoy maths is great, it means that you're more likely to do some independent studying, which will help your understanding.

it's alright although FP3 vectors will bite you in the arse if you don't understand what the hell you're doing!

If I like maths?