A Level Maths Exam Technique

Hi everyone,

I will be on the OCR MEI exam board studying Maths and Further Maths. I would like some advice on how to do well in maths exams for when I start in September (hopefully)!.

I understand that practice, practice is vital. What are the good resources for this? How long should I be practicing for a day?

Layout is another key feature. What are the best ways of presenting maths, especially when it comes to proofing?

And finally... what calculator should I get? I am still undecided whether to get the graphical or the silver scientific one.

I would really appreciate some advice. Thanks.

Do your exam boards past papers dating back from 2002/3. Do each paper from 2006 onwards twice at least. Do the Solomon papers ( these are harder than your usual exam boards, but it's good preparation).
Calculator- any scientific calculator. Casio do good ones
Layout- as long as its eligible it's fine.

Do as many papers as possible! The more exposure to lots of different types of questions the better Do all papers possible solomon, elmwood and all past papers.

You should aim to do about 1 hour out of school for every hour of maths you do in school at least that's what I got told anyway.

For layout just show as many steps as you can without wasting time. Not all steps will gain marks but try to show as much as possible to cover all bases.

I have the casio FX91-ES it is good because it can do NUMERICAL integration and differentiation to check your answers (no it's not cheating that's SYMBOLIC integration and differentiation)

Good luck!

Physics and maths tutor: http://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/a-level-maths-papers/

Thanks for the reply. They date back to 2004 and I will do them twice as well. This may sound stupid but what are Solomon Papers?

Thanks for the reply. Because I am doing Further Maths, would that be 2 hours?

Hi everyone,

I will be on the OCR MEI exam board studying Maths and Further Maths. I would like some advice on how to do well in maths exams for when I start in September (hopefully)!.

I understand that practice, practice is vital. What are the good resources for this? How long should I be practicing for a day?

Layout is another key feature. What are the best ways of presenting maths, especially when it comes to proofing?

And finally... what calculator should I get? I am still undecided whether to get the graphical or the silver scientific one.

I would really appreciate some advice. Thanks.

Yes, your gonna get maths headaches though- watch out for those!

I do Edexcel, but I might as well say how I did A level Maths. It might not work for you but it worked at least for me.

I taught myself the AS content as fast as I could by myself. And when I mean fast, I mean really fast. I'd make notes on what ever exercise in the book came up. If the exercise had a really simple concept and I didn't think the questions looked too difficult I'd only do a few of the questions. Just to give some sort of example, there is a chapter called "2nd Order Differential Equations" in the Further Pure 2 Unit of A2 Edexcel Further Maths. I read what the textbook had to say, and tried to teach myself the concepts behind the method they used. And all it really boiled down to was solving a quadratic equation. There were 30 questions total in the first 3 exercises of the chapeter: I did 3. If I was struggling a bit, I would do most, if not every question of the exercise. If a concept was more difficult to understand I would use Khan Academy, Exam Solutions (unfortunately for you though, Exam Solutions is mainly Edexcel focused), or anything I could find online to help me. The vast majority of the time it worked, but if everything else failed, I'd go ask a teacher. I used a different text book to what my school used so that by the time the classwork caught up to where I actually was, I wouldn't just be doing all the questions twice. School work then just becomes extra revision

The reason why I say to cover the content fast is because if you do, you don't have time to forget anything. And then you start past papers, which revise everything at once. This is how you get your grade to shoot up. When I started the past papers I didn't do very well; I never expected to. but you start to get the hang of it. I did a past paper for each unit maybe every other day, the marks I got went up and the time it took for each paper went down the more I did. In 2 - 3 weeks I was getting the marks I wanted. And then what happens after you've finished all the past papers? Well, you do them again. Chances are you will not remember absolutely any of the questions from the first papers you did; I know I didn't. And once you've done that, I would say don't be afraid to venture into other maths boards' past papers.. Some of the content may be different, but maths is maths. Everyone pretty much learns the same things.

The main reason why I like Edexcel is it because it has the largest online set of resources out of all boards from what I've seen. We have extra "supposed to be more difficult" Solomon past papers papers and everything. (They're just some extra papers some random guy made). The Edexcel textbook really helped as well, because the textbook came with a solution bank to all the questions so if I ever got stuck in the teaching myself process It was a lot easier for me to figure stuff out. Unfortunately I'm not sure if OCR textbooks are like that.

If you are confident in your Maths ability and can put in the extra effort, then I would recommend this method. If you've never taught yourself much before you might find it really difficult, because I did when I started doing this. But when you get the hang of it, you can pretty much do it for some other subjects, especially the sciences (though I revise science a little differently). Humanities subjects, well I've got no advice for them. I hate essay writing.

Remember, this is just how I revise Maths. It might work for some, it might not for others. If you think it might be worth a shot, then I don't think it'll hurt to give it a go.

Also. Physics and Maths tutor is a brilliant website for resources of all boards. Unfortunately the website is kinda down at the moment. All the links have been removed due to a server move.

Oh yeah and calculator : https://www.amazon.co.uk/Casio-FX-991ESPLUS-SA-UH-FX-991ESPLUS-Scientific-Calculator/dp/B0034BAQS8/ref=sr_1_1?s=officeproduct&ie=UTF8&qid=1471019469&sr=1-1&keywords=casio+fx-991es+plus
I have this one.

I think an hour for every hour you're taught is a little extreme but obviously the more you practice a good variety of questions the better. Of course I can't say anything yet until results next week 😂

there is no such thing as exam technquie in maths, its all about practice and consistency and not how you write out your answer

there is no such thing as exam technquie in maths,

I do Edexcel, but I might as well say how I did A level Maths. It might not work for you but it worked at least for me.

I taught myself the AS content as fast as I could by myself. And when I mean fast, I mean really fast. I'd make notes on what ever exercise in the book came up. If the exercise had a really simple concept and I didn't think the questions looked too difficult I'd only do a few of the questions. Just to give some sort of example, there is a chapter called "2nd Order Differential Equations" in the Further Pure 2 Unit of A2 Edexcel Further Maths. I read what the textbook had to say, and tried to teach myself the concepts behind the method they used. And all it really boiled down to was solving a quadratic equation. There were 30 questions total in the first 3 exercises of the chapeter: I did 3. If I was struggling a bit, I would do most, if not every question of the exercise. If a concept was more difficult to understand I would use Khan Academy, Exam Solutions (unfortunately for you though, Exam Solutions is mainly Edexcel focused), or anything I could find online to help me. The vast majority of the time it worked, but if everything else failed, I'd go ask a teacher. I used a different text book to what my school used so that by the time the classwork caught up to where I actually was, I wouldn't just be doing all the questions twice. School work then just becomes extra revision

The reason why I say to cover the content fast is because if you do, you don't have time to forget anything. And then you start past papers, which revise everything at once. This is how you get your grade to shoot up. When I started the past papers I didn't do very well; I never expected to. but you start to get the hang of it. I did a past paper for each unit maybe every other day, the marks I got went up and the time it took for each paper went down the more I did. In 2 - 3 weeks I was getting the marks I wanted. And then what happens after you've finished all the past papers? Well, you do them again. Chances are you will not remember absolutely any of the questions from the first papers you did; I know I didn't. And once you've done that, I would say don't be afraid to venture into other maths boards' past papers.. Some of the content may be different, but maths is maths. Everyone pretty much learns the same things.

The main reason why I like Edexcel is it because it has the largest online set of resources out of all boards from what I've seen. We have extra "supposed to be more difficult" Solomon past papers papers and everything. (They're just some extra papers some random guy made). The Edexcel textbook really helped as well, because the textbook came with a solution bank to all the questions so if I ever got stuck in the teaching myself process It was a lot easier for me to figure stuff out. Unfortunately I'm not sure if OCR textbooks are like that.

If you are confident in your Maths ability and can put in the extra effort, then I would recommend this method. If you've never taught yourself much before you might find it really difficult, because I did when I started doing this. But when you get the hang of it, you can pretty much do it for some other subjects, especially the sciences (though I revise science a little differently). Humanities subjects, well I've got no advice for them. I hate essay writing.

Remember, this is just how I revise Maths. It might work for some, it might not for others. If you think it might be worth a shot, then I don't think it'll hurt to give it a go.

Also. Physics and Maths tutor is a brilliant website for resources of all boards. Unfortunately the website is kinda down at the moment. All the links have been removed due to a server move.

Oh yeah and calculator : https://www.amazon.co.uk/Casio-FX-991ESPLUS-SA-UH-FX-991ESPLUS-Scientific-Calculator/dp/B0034BAQS8/ref=sr_1_1?s=officeproduct&ie=UTF8&qid=1471019469&sr=1-1&keywords=casio+fx-991es+plus
I have this one.

Hi everyone,

I will be on the OCR MEI exam board studying Maths and Further Maths. I would like some advice on how to do well in maths exams for when I start in September (hopefully)!.

I understand that practice, practice is vital. What are the good resources for this? How long should I be practicing for a day?

Layout is another key feature. What are the best ways of presenting maths, especially when it comes to proofing?

And finally... what calculator should I get? I am still undecided whether to get the graphical or the silver scientific one.

I would really appreciate some advice. Thanks.

I did maths & further maths and I'm expecting to get 4A*s and 2As next thursday for my 6 maths modules. (or 1A 1B XD I didnt take M2 seriously because why would I? I had 5 other good modules).

and well, yes, it's practice. although I must admit I've seen people who practiced more than me and got worse grades. If you can't do a question, don't look at the mark scheme immediately, try to think about it for a while, then only look it up in 1-2 days (I often solved questions in my dreams)

DON'T OVERDO IT!!!! it truly is harmful. Give yourself enough break. Let's say, do 10 questions, then 30 minutes break. (I did this when preparing for exams)