Edexcel AS maths - help!!
So I'm currently studying for my AS exams, which as I'm sure you're all aware are starting in around a weeks time! 
I'm looking more for some last minute advice.
I definitely put the most work into maths out of all of my subjects, and I feel like I'm nowhere near where I want to be. My most recent mock grades are:
Core 1 (2 months ago) - solid C
Core 2 (this week) - high C
Statistics - D
Those grades seem pretty low, and risky in terms of passing maths for me and I just wondered if there's even enough time, what I can do to improve. It's not even as if I don't understand things, for example in class I feel quite secure when we're taught new topics and do fine in the majority of the homework. I'm putting in a decent amount of work, so it's not as If I'm not working hard. I mostly use exam solutions to work topic by topic and use past papers, which I think are massively easier compared to the 2014 papers! I just don't feel prepared because the most recent questions, from last year I struggled with. Should I be working with the questions in the book, or using solomon papers or what?! I'm starting to really stress about it
Time is a push so I need some advice, at the moment I'm just feeling really unprepared and like the work I'm putting in is being wasted.
Thanks in advance for any replies.
I'm looking more for some last minute advice.I definitely put the most work into maths out of all of my subjects, and I feel like I'm nowhere near where I want to be. My most recent mock grades are:
Core 1 (2 months ago) - solid C
Core 2 (this week) - high C
Statistics - D
Those grades seem pretty low, and risky in terms of passing maths for me and I just wondered if there's even enough time, what I can do to improve. It's not even as if I don't understand things, for example in class I feel quite secure when we're taught new topics and do fine in the majority of the homework. I'm putting in a decent amount of work, so it's not as If I'm not working hard. I mostly use exam solutions to work topic by topic and use past papers, which I think are massively easier compared to the 2014 papers! I just don't feel prepared because the most recent questions, from last year I struggled with. Should I be working with the questions in the book, or using solomon papers or what?! I'm starting to really stress about it
Time is a push so I need some advice, at the moment I'm just feeling really unprepared and like the work I'm putting in is being wasted.
Thanks in advance for any replies.
Original post by meloj
Don't worry about the 2014 papers too much. I sat a fair few of them (including C2 but not S1 or C1) and the ones I did were notably more difficult than past papers, and I suppose that includes S1 and C1. In a way it's good because you know kind of what to expect for this year's exams. I can only guess that it will be of a similar difficulty to last year's ones - if it's a lot harder than that I suspect it will just be too difficult for the majority of people.
So from your mocks, try to learn why you went wrong. If you can get to a stage where you say 'ohh I see it now' then that's good. Whether it was the content or a tricky method.. just try to understand it in a way that you would be able to apply it again to something else.
Like you said, solomon papers are a good idea. Once you're happy with the content and the earlier past papers, those are the ones you want to be practising. The key for Maths is to understand things and practice a lot to help you understand. If you do more difficult questions then that'll help for the exam.
Try not to stress out, clear your head and practice difficult questions. Don't forget to do a bit of work on C1 as well, as you've probably not studied it in class for a while. I would say C1 and S1 are the easier modules out of the 3 (though S1 is quite long!) so those are the important ones to score marks in, and just do as best as you can in C2 (for the other modules as well though). If you get good grades in C1/S1 and a good enough grade in C2 you may want to resit it in Year 13 (if you're taking it to A2) - you'll find it much easier after doing C3/C4.
If you have any specific questions that you need help with you can also post here or message me.
Best of luck.
The guy/girl who answered first is your oracle. Take his/her advice and put it to use.
All I can recommend, and I can understand where you're coming from cos I find edexcel a bitch, is to do past paper after past paper from now.
solomon papers! They're like a goldmine.
That's what I've been doing for revision. Screw the questions in the book. Yes they're helpful but they're standard. The solomon papers are where you're really tested on. If you can do all them and get consistently good marks, like 65+ on every paper, you will ACE the exam. That means doing the paper in serious timed conditions, really treat it like an exam to feel the pressure and sense of time and everything... mark harshly, get a good mark hopefully and boom.
As my teacher said, "you can read a textbook for biology and absorb a wealth of information. You can memorise hundreds of case study reports for your psychology exam. But only in maths is where practice makes permanent"
All I can recommend, and I can understand where you're coming from cos I find edexcel a bitch, is to do past paper after past paper from now.
solomon papers! They're like a goldmine.
That's what I've been doing for revision. Screw the questions in the book. Yes they're helpful but they're standard. The solomon papers are where you're really tested on. If you can do all them and get consistently good marks, like 65+ on every paper, you will ACE the exam. That means doing the paper in serious timed conditions, really treat it like an exam to feel the pressure and sense of time and everything... mark harshly, get a good mark hopefully and boom.
As my teacher said, "you can read a textbook for biology and absorb a wealth of information. You can memorise hundreds of case study reports for your psychology exam. But only in maths is where practice makes permanent"
Original post by meloj
So I'm currently studying for my AS exams, which as I'm sure you're all aware are starting in around a weeks time! I'm looking more for some last minute advice.
I definitely put the most work into maths out of all of my subjects, and I feel like I'm nowhere near where I want to be. My most recent mock grades are:
Core 1 (2 months ago) - solid C
Core 2 (this week) - high C
Statistics - D
Those grades seem pretty low, and risky in terms of passing maths for me and I just wondered if there's even enough time, what I can do to improve. It's not even as if I don't understand things, for example in class I feel quite secure when we're taught new topics and do fine in the majority of the homework. I'm putting in a decent amount of work, so it's not as If I'm not working hard. I mostly use exam solutions to work topic by topic and use past papers, which I think are massively easier compared to the 2014 papers! I just don't feel prepared because the most recent questions, from last year I struggled with. Should I be working with the questions in the book, or using solomon papers or what?! I'm starting to really stress about it
Time is a push so I need some advice, at the moment I'm just feeling really unprepared and like the work I'm putting in is being wasted.
Thanks in advance for any replies.
I'm looking more for some last minute advice.I definitely put the most work into maths out of all of my subjects, and I feel like I'm nowhere near where I want to be. My most recent mock grades are:
Core 1 (2 months ago) - solid C
Core 2 (this week) - high C
Statistics - D
Those grades seem pretty low, and risky in terms of passing maths for me and I just wondered if there's even enough time, what I can do to improve. It's not even as if I don't understand things, for example in class I feel quite secure when we're taught new topics and do fine in the majority of the homework. I'm putting in a decent amount of work, so it's not as If I'm not working hard. I mostly use exam solutions to work topic by topic and use past papers, which I think are massively easier compared to the 2014 papers! I just don't feel prepared because the most recent questions, from last year I struggled with. Should I be working with the questions in the book, or using solomon papers or what?! I'm starting to really stress about it
Time is a push so I need some advice, at the moment I'm just feeling really unprepared and like the work I'm putting in is being wasted.
Thanks in advance for any replies.
Original post by SeanFM
Best of luck.
Thank you for your help! Glad to know it wasn't just me that found the 2014 papers a little more difficult. I'm definitely going to give the solomon papers a go, hopefully I'll be able to push myself up by a grade and like you said, there's always the opportunity to resit one of the exams next year. Thanks again, I feel slightly more assured now haha!
Original post by RMNDK
The guy/girl who answered first is your oracle. Take his/her advice and put it to use.
All I can recommend, and I can understand where you're coming from cos I find edexcel a bitch, is to do past paper after past paper from now.
solomon papers! They're like a goldmine.
That's what I've been doing for revision. Screw the questions in the book. Yes they're helpful but they're standard. The solomon papers are where you're really tested on. If you can do all them and get consistently good marks, like 65+ on every paper, you will ACE the exam. That means doing the paper in serious timed conditions, really treat it like an exam to feel the pressure and sense of time and everything... mark harshly, get a good mark hopefully and boom.
As my teacher said, "you can read a textbook for biology and absorb a wealth of information. You can memorise hundreds of case study reports for your psychology exam. But only in maths is where practice makes permanent"
All I can recommend, and I can understand where you're coming from cos I find edexcel a bitch, is to do past paper after past paper from now.
solomon papers! They're like a goldmine.
That's what I've been doing for revision. Screw the questions in the book. Yes they're helpful but they're standard. The solomon papers are where you're really tested on. If you can do all them and get consistently good marks, like 65+ on every paper, you will ACE the exam. That means doing the paper in serious timed conditions, really treat it like an exam to feel the pressure and sense of time and everything... mark harshly, get a good mark hopefully and boom.
As my teacher said, "you can read a textbook for biology and absorb a wealth of information. You can memorise hundreds of case study reports for your psychology exam. But only in maths is where practice makes permanent"
How come you're not keen on edexcel as an exam board? Just curious because I don't really have any knowledge on any others for maths. I'm definitely going to give the solomon papers a go and see how I find them, maybe with the old past papers I was getting too used to the methods and perhaps not understanding the content as well as I could do. Hopefully I can push my grade up a little in time for the exams!
You mentioned you're using them for your revision, so good luck with your exams! Not long to go now
Original post by meloj
How come you're not keen on edexcel as an exam board? Just curious because I don't really have any knowledge on any others for maths. I'm definitely going to give the solomon papers a go and see how I find them, maybe with the old past papers I was getting too used to the methods and perhaps not understanding the content as well as I could do. Hopefully I can push my grade up a little in time for the exams!
You mentioned you're using them for your revision, so good luck with your exams! Not long to go now
You mentioned you're using them for your revision, so good luck with your exams! Not long to go now
I do edexcel and in all honesty edexcel is probably the easiest exam board for a level maths (well apart from the ums boundaries). Most other boards have topics which don't appear until later edexcel units appear in their early units, so edexcel is definitely not a bad exam board to be on
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Original post by meloj
How come you're not keen on edexcel as an exam board? Just curious because I don't really have any knowledge on any others for maths. I'm definitely going to give the solomon papers a go and see how I find them, maybe with the old past papers I was getting too used to the methods and perhaps not understanding the content as well as I could do. Hopefully I can push my grade up a little in time for the exams!
You mentioned you're using them for your revision, so good luck with your exams! Not long to go now
You mentioned you're using them for your revision, so good luck with your exams! Not long to go now
I ain't keen because EDEXCEL are very generous in comparison to the other exam boards. That's good, but it also means the weightings for grade boundaries are affected. Yes do use solomon papers, and if you want a bit more on other specs you could try MEI.
Good luck bro/sis
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