Stuck in 'maths limbo' -- advice appreciated.

...

Hey.

I'm a year 12 studying maths A-level. I didn't choose FM at the start of the year and by the time I had realized how big of a mistake that was, it was too late for anyone to do anything about it. I've been offered AS FM next year by my head of Maths (provided I meet a certain grade), but I'll probably try to organise an accelerated course to do both years regardless.

Here's my current dilemma: for the past 7 months I have been stuck with C1, C2 and S1. It's depressing. I feel as though I'm not getting into the interesting area of maths; 70% of the stuff I'm doing now is just difficult GCSE. I've completed every single mock on the MEI website for my respective modules (I was supposed to have finished a few days ago but the MEI website was down), and let's just say I haven't had any troubles whatsoever.

Now I'm in a state of limbo -- there's no more practise to be had, and even if there were, the motivation isn't there any more. My revision has consisted of the same routine calculations which stem from the same routine questions, albeit with slight differences in wording. Most of my friends are learning about cool FP1 stuff and fish distributions, and I'm just sitting here writing posts like this.

Does anyone have any suggestions to 'brighten up' my maths? I browse the STEP thread every now-and-then and see really beautiful, intuitive maths being used there from the little I can understand. Calculus especially just seems to get better and better. I'm on the brink of focusing 100% of my time to chemistry, which isn't something I really want to do.

Self-study whatever you want.

lol

tried this website for more practise? http://www.madasmaths.com/
surely if you're doing the same calculations again and again then you should get the right?

I am getting it right. I didn't want to throw numbers around in my original post because it seemed pretentious, but I haven't gone below 95% in the last 7 that I've done. I mean, sure, there's always room for improvement, but at this point it's just diminishing returns and I feel as though my performance is based on my mood during the time of the test more than anything tangible.

I was hoping for an answer like this so that I could pose some concerns. I'm not sure if you've ever been in a similar situation (for maths or any subject), but would you be concerned that self-teaching maths would lead to further confusion later down the road once I'm taught it formally? I say this because many students who came in from FMSQ didn't fundamentally understand calculus because of the nature of their teaching. I'm concerned that, if I do decide to teach myself, something similar will happen to me if I were to be taught it in 6thF/Uni.

If not, then what would you recommend me teaching myself? Should I grab the C3/C4/FP2/FP3 textbooks and go through them linearly? Or do you think it'd be more enjoyable to take a single topic (like integrals or calculus in general) to a much further level?

I've self taught the entirety of maths, further maths and physics A-Level.

If you learn it right, meaning not sticking strictly to the A-Level syllabus but branching out and making an effort to understand why things work you'll be utterly fine.

The picking up a textbook and learning linesrly sounds likea fine approach, make sure to supplement your learning with constant attempts at questions, videos off youtube, interesting lectures, etc... make it a dynamic experience.

I'll try and write some more once I'm home and on my laptop, it's hard typing on my phone.

I was hoping for an answer like this so that I could pose some concerns. I'm not sure if you've ever been in a similar situation (for maths or any subject), but would you be concerned that self-teaching maths would lead to further confusion later down the road once I'm taught it formally? I say this because many students who came in from FMSQ didn't fundamentally understand calculus because of the nature of their teaching. I'm concerned that, if I do decide to teach myself, something similar will happen to me if I were to be taught it in 6thF/Uni.

If not, then what would you recommend me teaching myself? Should I grab the C3/C4/FP2/FP3 textbooks and go through them linearly? Or do you think it'd be more enjoyable to take a single topic (like integrals or calculus in general) to a much further level?

What do you mean by this?

I think he means that they are taught in a very formulaic way (although as we discussed yesterday, this is the case at A-Level as well) instead of students learning the concepts they are simply taught rules, i.e: add 1 to the power and divide by the derivative, etc...