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Bad at maths

I just started Alevel Maths, and im in AS. We had this test and I got a U despite getting an A at GCSE. I thought i was just having an off day, however my teacher now has said that she thinks I would be better off doing Use of Maths, but I told her I need Maths to study economics. She is lettting me stay in the class, but now I'm worried I'm not good enough

Any advice?
Reply 1
Avatar for Neuth
Neuth
19
@georgia_moon


This happens to a lot of students, so you aren't the only one - don't worry! :console:

People take their first test and suddenly realise the step up - getting an A at GCSE isn't a sign of how well you'll do at A-Level at all.
Infact, at my college, getting an A at GCSE meant your predicted grade for As was usually a C! :erm:

The key to doing well at A-Level is working hard. At GCSE you could probably get away with not doing work outside of lessons, apart from the occasional homework, but at A-Level you really do have to work hard (& constantly) to get good grades :yep:

Tips? Study lots - do lots of practise questions (apply your knowledge) & write out flashcards for key formulae.
See above.

Get the test back or ask for feedback. If you weren't familiar with the questions that it was asking then go back and learn that topic. I would suggest doing this again anyway. Then practice las many questions as you can for those topics, from the textbook, Hide the answers and just do the questions on the test and see if you've improved.

If you know that you have a test coming up do loads of practice and revision, and past paper questions if you want to push yourself. (Though take care as to not do question that involve topics that you haven't studied yet!).
Reply 3
Avatar for kkboyk
kkboyk
21
Original post by georgia_moon
I just started Alevel Maths, and im in AS. We had this test and I got a U despite getting an A at GCSE. I thought i was just having an off day, however my teacher now has said that she thinks I would be better off doing Use of Maths, but I told her I need Maths to study economics. She is lettting me stay in the class, but now I'm worried I'm not good enough

Any advice?


You've just started so don't worry too much about it.

I had gotten a B at GCSE and got Us in most of my tests (in particular statistics and mechanics), but then I've done many questions for every topic and done every past papers twice (I ended up getting above 90UMS in all my pures and Bs in my stats)

What i suggest doig is going on ExamSolutions, M4THS or even HegartyMaths and watch their tutorials occasionally. Then, try out every question
from your exercise book (copy the examples and read them often). If you find that you're ready, try out the past paper booklet by topic at PhysicsAndMathsTutor.com
Don't worry! If you got an A at GCSE you're no dummy! I took Further Maths at GCSE which I feel really helped me prepare for the Core modules as most of the content was in that to be honest, but my friend didn't and really struggled at the beginning. By the end though (we're now in Year 13), she came out with a very high A across all 3 modules. There are lots of techniques you can try to help gain a better understanding of the maths required yourself but, if all else fails, and you really want to do Maths, you can ask your teachers/get a private tutor if that's an option. Sometimes it really does just take someone sitting down with you and explaining things in a different way to written resources - feel free to PM me if there's anything I can do! (l love maths and got an A in my AS last year :biggrin:)

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