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Questions on application - Int. Student

I am a German student. I will be applying for Mathematics at the top unis next year.
Therefore, I have a few question about how to prepare for the interview, STEP and so on.

1. I would like to go through A-Level Maths and Further Maths so that I can get used to the language, as well as compare it with the material I study in Germany. Which books would you suggest me to use for... ? Would you say it is useful to go through A-level material or should I just familiarize myself with the mathematical language?

2. What is the best way to prepare for the STEP in my situation. Is there any particular aspect I have to put special emphasis on?

3. Despite A-level Maths and Further Maths, what do I have to know for Oxbridge interviews?

Thank you in advance.

Sven
Reply 1
Original post by sven93
I am a German student. I will be applying for Mathematics at the top unis next year.
Therefore, I have a few question about how to prepare for the interview, STEP and so on.

1. I would like to go through A-Level Maths and Further Maths so that I can get used to the language, as well as compare it with the material I study in Germany. Which books would you suggest me to use for... ? Would you say it is useful to go through A-level material or should I just familiarize myself with the mathematical language?

2. What is the best way to prepare for the STEP in my situation. Is there any particular aspect I have to put special emphasis on?

3. Despite A-level Maths and Further Maths, what do I have to know for Oxbridge interviews?

Thank you in advance.

Sven


1. I presume that you have done some exams that is similar to A-levels? (Do you have Core Maths (C1-C4), Mechanics (M1-M4), Statistics (S1-S4) and Further Pure (FP1-FP3) modules?) I guess that you can just familiarize yourself with the language. Because I think that most likely the exams will be quite similar (As I think maths is an universal language)

But if you havent done exams that are similar to A-levels, then I can suggest:

C1 and C2
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Core-Cambridge-Advanced-Level-Mathematics/dp/0521548969/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319322400&sr=8-1

This is what I used during my A-levels. (My exam board was OCR- you might want to look into what exam board you want to go for)

To check whether if you have done exams similar to the ones you have done, I would suggest you look into past papers (try the OCR website: www.ocr.org.uk)

2. I havent done STEP before, but I would suggest that you practice a lot.

3. Prepare for typical interview questions?

Good luck!
Reply 2
Thank you for your quick reply rikkuhitsu .
The problem is that we are using only one book in germany for the last 2 years before graduating. It is hard to say whether the exams are similar, because you are using so many different books for every typ of mathematics. Nevertheless I suspect that the material is quite the same. Due to this difference I thought about going through some books to check the deviation.
You listed some books, do you thing it is necessary to cope with all of them or only with the C1 and C2 ?

Sven
Reply 3
Original post by sven93
Thank you for your quick reply rikkuhitsu .
The problem is that we are using only one book in germany for the last 2 years before graduating. It is hard to say whether the exams are similar, because you are using so many different books for every typ of mathematics. Nevertheless I suspect that the material is quite the same. Due to this difference I thought about going through some books to check the deviation.
You listed some books, do you thing it is necessary to cope with all of them or only with the C1 and C2 ?

Sven


Yes, because Core Maths and the other modules contains different materials (quite different as well)- since, for example, Mechanics focuses on the physics side of maths. And also, I have only just shown you C1 and C2 (just as an example), there are also books for C3&C4, M1, M2, M3, S1, S2, FP1 and FP2&FP3. Check on Amazon and you should find a series of books that have similar covers. :smile:

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