The Student Room Group
Reply 1
erm, well obv no1 can flick through a book for the 2st time then sit the exam and ace it, but some modules are easier than others and able candidates can get high grades with a low amount of work.
Reply 2
You will be fine. There is a lot of help available with Maths and i'm sure ppl on UK-L will help with problems if you are stuck sometimes
Reply 3
faa
Hi- just to confirm, you know when you guys all do glance at like P1, P2 for the first time- it isnt until you're taught it that you do fully understand it. I mean im reading (glancing) through the textbook in ottakars and waterstones and wondering if i am meant to go "oh yeh that looks easy". You guys do have to work hard still to get your A grades- it aint a walk thro the park, is it?


Obviously you won't understand it on your first time looking through =). I remember getting my M2, P2 and P3 (A2) books right after my AS exams and thumbing through, laughing with my friends at how difficult it looked.
In the 2.5 months since then i've finished M2, P2 and am just over half way through P3 without teaching, just by using the heinemann books.

Just take it one step at a time and get cracking. If you work through the books, in order and do every question you'll do extremely well in the exams as normally some of the questions in the books are more taxing than the exams.

In the first few months of my AS year i did little to no work in my own time, took the maths M1 exam in January and failed with a U.

Then i pulled my finger out, got working through the books in my own time and am hoping for/expecting an A.

If you put in the effort i find mathematics to be an extremely rewarding and interesting subject.
Reply 4
I found maths the hardest subject of the lot. Hell of a lot of lunchtimes from January onwards were spent in the maths room doing endless excercises and practise, and I'm still pushing it to expect an A.

It looks impossible at the start but this is from a complete maths dud - you CAN get an A if you want one - Maths comes with no effort to some, with shedloads of practise to others...but you can do well if you really are prepared to try!

Go for it! It's so rewarding when you get a question right after 3 pages of working (the answer always being 1 or 0 or pi... :rolleyes: )
Reply 5
Avatar for faa
faa
OP
well this is going to sound mad- but i did AS and got an A, we did P1, S1 and M1, all concurrently. I found it really hard, especially as i was in a new school with new teachers, plus there was lots of pressure and they expected u to know it. then in yr 13 i totally dropped it, but im thinking of doing a 3rd year of a levels. ive been going over the books and i must say (without being hypocritical of my opening thread)- when you look at it on your own with no pressure it seems so much simplar. ive gone back to my gcse to cover the basics and im confident i have those, ive been thro half of p1 and it does seem simpler. i think that we wasnt taught everything at gcse and so that didnt help. ive gone to ocr and aqa and got exam papers for all units and even FP1 looks feasible if you've studied it!!!! plus the fact that for the new 2005 syllabus u really are only doing p1,2,3 + 2 app units (cos 1-3 now is 1-4) it means slightly less to learn. i think i will definitely do p1-4 and probably s1,s2 however i can never imagine a time when i will understand which side of the line normal distribution works on!! lol it always seems to be made up as they go............ hehe
Reply 6
I thought it looked insanely difficult the first time I looked at it. Everyone was failing and everyone want to drop maths during the AS-year. ITs different for everyone but it seemed to 'click' by Easter and then P1 became easier.

It is very difficult, but if you work hard at it it can be relatively easy to get a good passing grade :smile:
of course you wont understand it until you're taught it. thats what teachers are for!
i found some of the AS syllabus challenging, but after a bit of work and practicing...hopefully i got the hang of it
Reply 8
In some ways it's like a long logic puzzle, it looks tricky, near impossible at first, but the more you study it, the more you understand it and it becomes more 'obvious'
Reply 9
beauford
..., but the more you study it, the more you understand it ...

d'accord!

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