[Kaiser7]

Hello, everyone

Can you please give me some much needed advice?

Right now my exam dates are 14 May (Physics paper 4, most important paper of the A-level), 24 May (S2), 30 May (Physics paper 5, alt. to practical), 31 May (M2), 1 June (FP1), 14 June (M3), 21 June (S3), 22 June (FP2).

I have only had 2 months to self-study the 6 further maths modules, and so I was only able to read through each one's book, basically just to have an overview of each one. Unfortunately, it's too much information for me to be able to grasp and use to solve problems in this short amount of time, and so I'm wondering how to dedicate my time from here on out in order to get the best possible grade.

Should I dedicate the 9 days between Physics paper 4 and S2 just to S2, or should I only dedicate a part of it to S2 and use the rest of the days to study FP1 for example?

I have 13 days between FP1 and M3, and then 7 more days between M3 and S3 and FP2. These are the three hard modules, and the ones where I have the most trouble. How do you think I should split my time in these 3 weeks?

Also, should I just solve past papers and read the mark schemes, letting information sink in, or do you think I have time to go through the syllabuses again before solving past papers?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Kaiser7]

Any help, please?

[kingkongjaffa]

Do a paper, highlight anything you lost marks on or couldn't answer. Isolate the topic you couldn't do, watch examples on the internet / use your textbook.
Do another paper. Repeat.

Think about the fact it only takes 1 hour 30 to do a paper you can get through 2 or 3 a day after college, just try and iron out the problems by researching what you couldn't do, Also you will become familiar with the questions too and most of the time with maths exams its the same questions but different numbers.

[Kaiser7]

(Original post by kingkongjaffa)
Do a paper, highlight anything you lost marks on or couldn't answer. Isolate the topic you couldn't do, watch examples on the internet / use your textbook.
Do another paper. Repeat.

Think about the fact it only takes 1 hour 30 to do a paper you can get through 2 or 3 a day after college, just try and iron out the problems by researching what you couldn't do, Also you will become familiar with the questions too and most of the time with maths exams its the same questions but different numbers.

Thank you. Very helpful.

Any more ideas?

[member910132]

(Original post by Kaiser7)
Hello, everyone

Can you please give me some much needed advice?

Right now my exam dates are 14 May (Physics paper 4, most important paper of the A-level), 24 May (S2), 30 May (Physics paper 5, alt. to practical), 31 May (M2), 1 June (FP1), 14 June (M3), 21 June (S3), 22 June (FP2).

I have only had 2 months to self-study the 6 further maths modules, and so I was only able to read through each one's book, basically just to have an overview of each one. Unfortunately, it's too much information for me to be able to grasp and use to solve problems in this short amount of time, and so I'm wondering how to dedicate my time from here on out in order to get the best possible grade.

Should I dedicate the 9 days between Physics paper 4 and S2 just to S2, or should I only dedicate a part of it to S2 and use the rest of the days to study FP1 for example?

I have 13 days between FP1 and M3, and then 7 more days between M3 and S3 and FP2. These are the three hard modules, and the ones where I have the most trouble. How do you think I should split my time in these 3 weeks?

Also, should I just solve past papers and read the mark schemes, letting information sink in, or do you think I have time to go through the syllabuses again before solving past papers?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Coming from someone who is self teaching FM too and I don't want to make it seem difficult on you, you need to cut down sleep to a minimum if you want to do well in all those exams.

Due some issues that came up in life I only had a small amount of time to self teach FP2 and 3 and trust me when I say if you don't get your sleep right then you will struggle to find the time to put in the hours required for a good grade.

It isn't constant for everyone human, but I would say you need to wake up between 5:30 - 6:30 every day and start work asap, before you even have breakfast or brush your teeth. If necessary then take a nap anytime between 12-5 but don't go above 2 hours.

It is possible to get through those exams without doing what I have described but if you want good grades (A*'s) then that is my advice. Coming from someone with 3A* A and predicted A* in FM.

EDIT: I didn't realize you are at college, my advice would be that if you are confident you know what you need to do and have good textbooks then stop going to college for this last month. But you need to make your own judgement on that, it comes down to how confident you are. Personally I stopped going to college during the time before my exams becasue I could get through a hell of a lot more work at home alone.

[Tomcrease]

Just do all the available past papers, the problems basically repeat year on year and once you've seen what's going on it should become easy. For the first few papers you do I would suggest working through with the mark scheme.

[Rubgish]

If you want to achieve the A*, the thing you need to remember is you need to get 90% in 3 of the FM A-level modules but only 80% overall, which means you only need to achieve 70% average in the as-level modules. Basically it means that you can care less about FP1 and two other papers of your choice and focus on the other three. If you can achieve about 90% avg in your three chosen modules, then you can do even worse in the other 3, so say you are better at mechs than stats, then spend far more time on the mechanics and get yourself confident you can get 95% on those two and you should be sorted.

Obviously this is a non-ideal way to do it, but if you are this time limited its best to play the system.

[Kaiser7]

(Original post by member910132)
Coming from someone who is self teaching FM too and I don't want to make it seem difficult on you, you need to cut down sleep to a minimum if you want to do well in all those exams.

Due some issues that came up in life I only had a small amount of time to self teach FP2 and 3 and trust me when I say if you don't get your sleep right then you will struggle to find the time to put in the hours required for a good grade.

It isn't constant for everyone human, but I would say you need to wake up between 5:30 - 6:30 every day and start work asap, before you even have breakfast or brush your teeth. If necessary then take a nap anytime between 12-5 but don't go above 2 hours.

It is possible to get through those exams without doing what I have described but if you want good grades (A*'s) then that is my advice. Coming from someone with 3A* A and predicted A* in FM.

EDIT: I didn't realize you are at college, my advice would be that if you are confident you know what you need to do and have good textbooks then stop going to college for this last month. But you need to make your own judgement on that, it comes down to how confident you are. Personally I stopped going to college during the time before my exams becasue I could get through a hell of a lot more work at home alone.

Thank you, I will try my best to minimize my sleeping hours.

(Original post by Tomcrease)
Just do all the available past papers, the problems basically repeat year on year and once you've seen what's going on it should become easy. For the first few papers you do I would suggest working through with the mark scheme.

Thank you

(Original post by Rubgish)
If you want to achieve the A*, the thing you need to remember is you need to get 90% in 3 of the FM A-level modules but only 80% overall, which means you only need to achieve 70% average in the as-level modules. Basically it means that you can care less about FP1 and two other papers of your choice and focus on the other three. If you can achieve about 90% avg in your three chosen modules, then you can do even worse in the other 3, so say you are better at mechs than stats, then spend far more time on the mechanics and get yourself confident you can get 95% on those two and you should be sorted.

Obviously this is a non-ideal way to do it, but if you are this time limited its best to play the system.

Thank you, very good strategy. The thing is, I'm currently very unprepared for M3, S3, and FP2, and I will only have three weeks total to do all 3. Do you think that's enough?

[member910132]

Look, S2 and M2 are nice and easy and count towards the A*, if you can get 95+ in them and like 80 in one remaining A2 exam then you have got an A*, provided you don't seriously mess up your AS.

Edit: O haven't dome M3 or S3 but FP2 can be done in a week provided you work like mad, I did it in roughly 2 weeks working 3-5 hours a day.

[Kaiser7]

(Original post by member910132)
Look, S2 and M2 are nice and easy and count towards the A*, if you can get 95+ in them and like 80 in one remaining A2 exam then you have got an A*, provided you don't seriously mess up your AS.

Edit: O haven't dome M3 or S3 but FP2 can be done in a week provided you work like mad, I did it in roughly 2 weeks working 3-5 hours a day.

The problem is I'm gonna have a week for S3 and FP2 :/ , but 2 weeks for M3 prior to that... maybe I can study some S3 or FP2 in that time?

[Kaiser7]

Any more tips?

[Dangerous Theory]

Maybe you are vastly more intelligent than me, but self teaching a course in less than two months during exam period is pure insanity to me. Why exactly did you enter yourself for the exams this year, or leave it so late to start??

[Revent]

FP1-Easily do-able. Just cram and past papers. Know i=root(-1) and be able to apply that. That's pretty much most of fp1
FP2-Depends on exam board, focus on learning polar co-ordinates, matrices, de moivres, eulers and hyperbolics. leave integration for last as its probably the toughest topic in fp2
S2-easy. need I say more?
M2-do-able once again. Depends on exam board, learn how to split up into vertical and horizontal components and apply your GCSE Physics knowledge (loss in KE=gain in GPE, etc...)
M3-Can't say, but I've heard it's an interesting module but centre of mass stuff is fairly easy. can't say much more on it
S3-Tougher than S2, but have heard it's fairly easy, there will be a whole bunch of other tests I'd imagine, make sure you can tell the difference between the 1 tail and 2 tails when looking at your tables, etc..


Most importantly: PAST PAPERS!!!!

[Kaiser7]

(Original post by Dangerous Theory)
Maybe you are vastly more intelligent than me, but self teaching a course in less than two months during exam period is pure insanity to me. Why exactly did you enter yourself for the exams this year, or leave it so late to start??

I'm from Egypt, and I only decided to apply to the UK a couple of days before the deadline (January 15), and obviously the UK requires the applicant to have done 3 A-levels. Therefore, I decided to take A2 Physics (I had already done AS in November) and A level further math as my 2nd and 3rd A-levels, respectively. I pretty much slacked off for a couple of months, going out every night and not studying at all. I started studying further math by reading the books in March. I hope I answered your question.

[Kaiser7]

(Original post by Revent)
FP1-Easily do-able. Just cram and past papers. Know i=root(-1) and be able to apply that. That's pretty much most of fp1
FP2-Depends on exam board, focus on learning polar co-ordinates, matrices, de moivres, eulers and hyperbolics. leave integration for last as its probably the toughest topic in fp2
S2-easy. need I say more?
M2-do-able once again. Depends on exam board, learn how to split up into vertical and horizontal components and apply your GCSE Physics knowledge (loss in KE=gain in GPE, etc...)
M3-Can't say, but I've heard it's an interesting module but centre of mass stuff is fairly easy. can't say much more on it
S3-Tougher than S2, but have heard it's fairly easy, there will be a whole bunch of other tests I'd imagine, make sure you can tell the difference between the 1 tail and 2 tails when looking at your tables, etc..


Most importantly: PAST PAPERS!!!!

Thank you!

[Revent]

(Original post by Kaiser7)
Thank you!

No worries I'm more of a maths crammer myself #
Let me know if you need any specific advice or anything and how it goes

[Kaiser7]

(Original post by Revent)
No worries I'm more of a maths crammer myself #
Let me know if you need any specific advice or anything and how it goes

Alright I will

[Kaiser7]

Can anyone outline how they think I should assign my time during the periods between 14-24 May, and 1-14 June? I mean, how many days should I assign to each modules? Should I just study S2 from 14-24 May, and M3 from 1-14 June, or give some time to studying FP1 and FP2 for example? Do you think S2 and M3 require all that time?

[Intriguing Alias]

Number one tip: stop assigning time to TSR.

[Brit_Miller]

How come it seems like half the people in this forum self-teach themselves half the maths modules? Call me old fashioned, but we used to have teachers!