Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

M2 and M3 before M1

Hey all, just looking for a bit of advice concerning Maths/Further Maths A level.

My school takes C1/C2/S1 in Year 12 followed by C3/C4/M1 in Year 13, took C1 last week meaning I'm currently studying for C2 and stats.

Around the October half term I decided I wanted to take Further Maths, this was my own responsibility as I already had 5 subjects at the time. I got hold of FP1 and learnt it as fast as I could, feeling completely ready for the exam in a fortnight.

Obviously to complete the Further Maths AS by the end of this year I need to complete two more supplementary units, Stats is out of the question because for A2 I will be taking FM within the school after dropping a subject or two for Y13, and the school choose to take FP2/S2/S3 as their A2 FM units.

It's been suggested that I take a shot at D1 and D2 in the summer, which will complete my FM AS. However this is not too attractive to me, I've gone over the stuff and although I will accept it as a last option, it looks extremely boring, repetitive and doesn't fulfil any of my interests at all. Additionally, it may not be as desirable when applying to uni to take either a Maths or Physics degree.

Therefore my only other option is to sit Mechanics modules... as my school takes M1 as default for Y13 Maths, that means I would have to take M2 and M3 this year to avoid difficulties next year.

So really, I am asking, is this possible? Is it allowed by the exam boards, is it acheivable, difficult, or sane? Do the topics in M1 set the ground in a way that M2 and M3 would be impossible without its knowledge? Open to any other suggestions also.

Cheers. X

Reply 1

Jeppasloth

If FP1 took you two weeks to learn M1 would take a few days. Mechanics is a bit different to normal maths and M1 kind of introduces you to it quite nicely. A lot of the topics follow on from M1 also (Projectiles, resituation, systems in rigid equilibrium aswell as more). I would just teach yourself M1 then move onto M2, then maybe in the time you would have spent on M1 next year do M3?

All 3 modules are nice though, I would efinitely advise taking them.

Reply 2

bzzz

It's completely impossible to begin to understand the material for M2 and M3 if you haven't done M1, and if you do then you probably don't need to study M1 anyway. You might want to look into studying M1-3 by yourself and just skip the M1 lessons in year 13.

Reply 3

Camss

Original post by bzzz

This is the problem, there's almost no way they'd allow me to skip the sessions, they're integrated into the timetable with the Core lessons too much. The individual teacher may allow me to just study M3 alone during his M1 lessons though.

Reply 4

Melanie-v

Haha, I had exactly the same situation as you, except I decided in February.

M1 isn't hard, especially if you do physics (at least I didn't think it was). It uses a lot of unit 1 edexcel mechanics. M2 isn't hard to pick up after M1, *but* you need differentiation (most of which is C3).
Why don't you go through M1 (it won't take long if you do physics), and then do M2? They're both nice modules. You might even have a few frees next year.

M3 is mean (to me) and you *need* C4 integration. Physics is not needed, but having done physics unit 4 makes life a hell of a lot easier. I'll probably retake M3 in June.

I did D1, and it's boring, but you can get through the course very very quickly. D2 is meant to be harder, but I haven't looked at it. I also heard that D1 isn't too liked by unis, but maybe self - studying it outweighed that, as I have offers and no rejections yet. (NatSci, physical, emphasis on physics).
I'd do D1.

How about FP2? I'm not sure what core units you need for it, but it's pure maths.
Feel free to PM me or whatever.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 5

Jeppasloth