[Contrad!ction.]

How are people doing? Are many people taking this?

I'm self-teaching, and I've still got chapters 7 and 8 to learn. I've got some improving to do on group theory. De Moivre's theorem seems ok, as does what I've done on differential equations. Looking forward to chapter 7, I really like trig. What are your favourite topics?

[Killjoy-]

Subscribing

Favourite topic is probably differential equations, as I love calculus.

[Contrad!ction.]

(Original post by Killjoy-)
Subscribing

Favourite topic is probably differential equations, as I love calculus.

Do you get lessons? I find the book's really poor at explaining things, which leaves me applying stuff without actually knowing why it works. DEs are nice - how are you finding groups?

[Killjoy-]

(Original post by Contrad!ction.)
Do you get lessons? I find the book's really poor at explaining things, which leaves me applying stuff without actually knowing why it works. DEs are nice - how are you finding groups?

Yeah, I get lessons. We have just finished the unit.
At fist I found group theory odd, but that might be because I didn't focus as well in class on it as DEs. I'm going to see how I find it after revision.

I don't find the book too bad. Its certainly not perfect but at least the authors seem to be keen on proofs much more than say some edexcel texts I looked at.

There are certainly better proofs on the internet for some things.
Like say for auxiliary equations of DEs I used http://www.ucl.ac.uk/mathematics/geo...deqn/de10.html

and http://rutherglen.science.mq.edu.au/...lder/fyc16.pdf

I prefer this to S2 though.

[Contrad!ction.]

(Original post by Killjoy-)
Yeah, I get lessons. We have just finished the unit.
At fist I found group theory odd, but that might be because I didn't focus as well in class on it as DEs. I'm going to see how I find it after revision.

I don't find the book too bad. Its certainly not perfect but at least the authors seem to be keen on proofs much more than say some edexcel texts I looked at.

There are certainly better proofs on the internet for some things.
Like say for auxiliary equations of DEs I used http://www.ucl.ac.uk/mathematics/geo...deqn/de10.html

and http://rutherglen.science.mq.edu.au/...lder/fyc16.pdf

I prefer this to S2 though.

Some of the proofs involving group theory are hard to get my head around. I struggle with isomorphisms.

I tend to ignore the waffle and just copy down the blue boxes and work on the exercises. Then, I'll ask my teacher for help and he'll copy one of their examples The best one was when I was stuck on a roots question (the one with the simultaneous equations where you had to find a, b and c and then had to solve in terms of omega) and I asked him for help during a C4 lesson. He spent half the lesson looking at it until the bell went, when he gave up. When I went to bed, I realised how to do it. I mentioned it to him and he looked impressed

Cheers, I'll take a look.

I quite liked S2, that was another of my self-taught ones. Not a fan of the CLT - I'd advise you to read the reports on the units, they pick up on a load of recurring issues such as 'candidates displayed too much certainty when concluding a hypothesis test' and 'too many candidates used 'singly' as a condition - this will not get them the marks'. Know your Poisson, binomial and normal conditions.

[Ree69]

Might it be worth doing an OCR FP2 + FP3 thread (like the Edexcel one)?

[Contrad!ction.]

(Original post by Ree69)
Might it be worth doing an OCR FP2 + FP3 thread (like the Edexcel one)?

Some people might not be doing both, and once we get nearer to exam time the threads seem to get really active. Plus I might be moaning a lot about groups in this one, which FP2ers might not want to hear

[Killjoy-]

As well as nth roots of unity, do we need to know about the nth roots of a general complex number?

It's in the textbook but I don't recall it from class.

[Contrad!ction.]

(Original post by Killjoy-)
As well as nth roots of unity, do we need to know about the nth roots of a general complex number?

It's in the textbook but I don't recall it from class.

I'd advise you to do it just in case it does come up. Had that issue with M1 (was in book, but asterisked) so we were told not to bother - it came up.

It's not too bad.

[Ree69]

Has anyone done the practice papers in the FP2/3 textbook? I'm finding some of the groups questions really tricky - e.g. practice paper 2 q3 (Page 424). I don't even know how to start attempting this!

(Original post by Killjoy-)
As well as nth roots of unity, do we need to know about the nth roots of a general complex number?

You definitely do - it's come up in several past papers.

[Contrad!ction.]

(Original post by Ree69)
Has anyone done the practice papers in the FP2/3 textbook? I'm finding some of the groups questions really quicky - e.g. practice paper 2 q3 (Page 424). I don't even know how to start attempting this!

UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH groups yuck.

I haven't started on past papers as I still need to learn the further trig and the complex calculus, but once they're done I'll start. But groups - they were the first things I learnt, so I'm foggy, and they're also horrible. Didn't really do too well when I started. Hopefully past papers will improve it.

[Ree69]

(Original post by Contrad!ction.)
UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH groups yuck.

I haven't started on past papers as I still need to learn the further trig and the complex calculus, but once they're done I'll start. But groups - they were the first things I learnt, so I'm foggy, and they're also horrible. Didn't really do too well when I started. Hopefully past papers will improve it.

The actual past papers are definitely easier than the practice ones in the textbook!

This is my third time sitting FP3, I'm pretty sure I still don't understand groups.

[Contrad!ction.]

(Original post by Ree69)
The actual past papers are definitely easier than the practice ones in the textbook!

This is my third time sitting FP3, I'm pretty sure I still don't understand groups.

I'm ok until they get to subgroups and isomorphisms. I think I'm going to get my head of maths to give me a mini lesson on them.

Ouch, must get annoying. What are the other things like in exams - complex, DEs, that sort of thing?

[Ree69]

(Original post by Contrad!ction.)
I'm ok until they get to subgroups and isomorphisms. I think I'm going to get my head of maths to give me a mini lesson on them.

Ouch, must get annoying. What are the other things like in exams - complex, DEs, that sort of thing?

Tbh I find the subgroups and isomorphisms bit a lot easier than groups itself! It's just some of the 'prove that' questions are really weird - unless it's the 'prove that set G forms a group', then you can do (more or less) the same approach each time.

Yeah, once you start doing past papers you'll realise there's only really four chapters in FP3.

Differetial equations (both first and second order).
Vectors, lines and planes.
Trig (and complex numbers).
Groups.

...sometimes I wonder why my school had to do OCR and not Edexcel.

[Contrad!ction.]

(Original post by Ree69)
Tbh I find the subgroups and isomorphisms bit a lot easier than groups itself! It's just some of the 'prove that' questions are really weird - unless it's the 'prove that set G forms a group', then you can do (more or less) the same approach each time.

Yeah, once you start doing past papers you'll realise there's only really four chapters in FP3.

Differetial equations (both first and second order).
Vectors, lines and planes.
Trig (and complex numbers).
Groups.

...sometimes I wonder why my school had to do OCR and not Edexcel.

Yeah, I could see that anyway. There isn't really trig - that uses complex anyway.

My head of maths is switching us to Edexcel when the syllabus changes - not going to help me though, is it?

Isn't OCR the only one that does groups?

[Ree69]

(Original post by Contrad!ction.)
Yeah, I could see that anyway. There isn't really trig - that uses complex anyway.

My head of maths is switching us to Edexcel when the syllabus changes - not going to help me though, is it?

Isn't OCR the only one that does groups?

When is the syllabus changing? Nah, MEI does groups too.

[SBarns]

(Original post by Ree69)
Has anyone done the practice papers in the FP2/3 textbook? I'm finding some of the groups questions really tricky - e.g. practice paper 2 q3 (Page 424). I don't even know how to start attempting this!

I was looking at that question earlier, seemed pretty ridiculous to be honest - like you I had no idea where to begin. The more 'general' style proofs are certainly more difficult than the more standard 'find a subgroup...prove that blah is a group...is blah isomorphic to blah...'

Our teacher told us to basically ignore the practice papers, as they are far, far harder in general than the 'actual' past papers themselves.

As a side note, I absolutely love vectors and planes.

[Ree69]

(Original post by SBarns)
I was looking at that question earlier, seemed pretty ridiculous to be honest - like you I had no idea where to begin. The more 'general' style proofs are certainly more difficult than the more standard 'find a subgroup...prove that blah is a group...is blah isomorphic to blah...'

Our teacher told us to basically ignore the practice papers, as they are far, far harder in general than the 'actual' past papers themselves.

As a side note, I absolutely love vectors and planes.

Yeah, I might start a thread about that question later. I did that last year - to be honest, I wouldn't say they're that much harder than actual past papers. The style's similar.

Although I do feel the time pressure a lot more for the practice ones.

[Froopsy]

Does anyone have the mark scheme for the Jan 2012 OCR FP3 paper??

[Anon 17]

How is everyone self teaching this?

I'm going through the book and following the study plan on Integral Maths but when it asks me to do some questions for some exercises (I.E. Questions 5 & 9 from exercise 7A) no matter how many examples I look at in the book, I can't apply the method to the questions.

The book's examples rarely seem relevant to the actual questions, so when you guys get stuck on a question how do you resolve it?

Also, in the case of 7A question 5, they ask you to use a previously worked out expansion of sin8theta when the actual way to solve the question is by using a different expansion of it... Is there a way to spot all these random methods or are (as I suspect) they simply relying on a lot of trial and error?