Hi, I wasn't sure which board to come to, I guess this is kind of an academical question. I wanted to know if theres any work books which I could read through and do some work from, like the module books at school, which would prepare for the sort of work you get at degree level?
Its just a thought because my exams finish in a week, and I know all too well how a rusty I can become with maths if I take a few weeks off, let alone 3 months of drinking.
I've done C1-C4, FP1-FP3, M1-M3, S1 and D1 modules so something as a step along from there would be nice. I was thinking about looking through M4 or S2, but I'm not sure how soon your thrown into more applied work at uni. I think almost the first term is based on getting the basics of pure down.
Anyway thanks, I'm in no rush because as I said, I've got exams till next week and after that I plan to take a nice long break, but 3 months is a bit much, especially without a job.
I've actually got STEP 1 and 2 to do next week, and I'm not really putting much hope into it, although I read its about 4 good answers for a 1 grades. I can usually get 3 good answers out of STEP 1, which will hopefully be enough with the other half answers to get a 2 grade which I need. I was thinking of looking over STEP papers, it just didn't seem to exciting. Its the same old material made super difficult.
I wouldn't advise this, basically because STEP is A-Level maths made hard and/or tedious. Personally, I'd suggest you get a start on Analysis, perhaps by working through: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Numbers-Func...3823746&sr=8-1
Stats 2 gave me a slight edge in probability. Having not come across standard things such as poisson or normal distributions can be a bit of a pain. Anything after then and I'm not sure.
I did upto M3 and it didn't help me at all. I dropped my mechanics module after 2 weeks. It was doable but I decided I don't like university physics! Analysis is probably something you can look at but I never understood it until I actually got here. Linear Algebra is something that you might want to look at. Learning basic things on vectors and matrices from FP1/3 (well more staying sharp) is pretty useful. I'd probably have a look at OCR group theory if you did Edexcel.
All depends on the course. Warwick is very flexible so you'll be doing applied from term 1.
I wouldn't advise this, basically because STEP is A-Level maths made hard and/or tedious. Personally, I'd suggest you get a start on Analysis, perhaps by working through: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Numbers-Func...3823746&sr=8-1
I really wouldn't. What's to be gained by struggling through a hard course before you have people around to help you? STEP is indeed A-level made hard, but uni maths is hard. Tedious? Well, yes, but only because you need to be bloody good at it and so need tons of practice... rather now than halfway through the first term, no?
I really wouldn't. What's to be gained by struggling through a hard course before you have people around to help you? STEP is indeed A-level made hard, but uni maths is hard. Tedious? Well, yes, but only because you need to be bloody good at it and so need tons of practice... rather now than halfway through the first term, no?
seriously, do you ever sleep? what time do you go to bed?
flip me man, did I deserve that, thats some pwerful neg rep you got there. Im sorry, but i think its a case of mistaken identity, ive actually never negged you in my life.
Don't worry, I took a year out and didn't have any problems getting back into it.
I found this book to be very good if you do want something to do- it gives a basic introduction to sets and proofs, before touching upon other first year topics such as functions, some simple analysis and discrete mathematics.
Cheers for all the replies, I've bookmarked all the links because this is all really for a few weeks when I've got sufficiently bored of being at home. S2 would be an idea because I haven't done any stats since over a year ago now, and I hated it then. I did quite well in the exam though, and we did do some normal distribution in S1 and that was one of the parts that I didn't mind when it made sense to me. I'll be doing STEP questions aswell I just wanted something new to look at to keep me interested. Its not like you can just sit down one night and work through a STEP paper, and it can be really frustrating being stuck on one question for quite a while. Looking at some solutions to the questions it really doesn't look 'hard' but more of a different way of thinking things through. I've heard about AQA papers aswell, my guess is they're kind of like STEP, more difficult A-level problems. I'll probably look them up.
yeah i recommend doing s2. I only did s1 at A level and i found my first year stats modules really confusing at first - i hadnt done things like stderror or confidence intervals before.
I thoroughly encourage you to not do any maths until a few weeks before uni. I've not done maths in a year and I could still do the FP1,FP2,FP3 exams with about a weeks revision. This is going to be unique summer for you people finishing A2's. You have absolutely no academic work to do... Haven't started your uni course and you've just finished 2 years. Go out... get hammered, go travel abit, go read some good books, go learn an instrument etc.... Do some enrichment, learn a new language, go to the cinema, go to music gigs etc.. Anything other than doing academic work.
Ahh, I was close with AQA, words were never my thing.
And don't worry I'll be spending a good portion of my holiday drunk and out the house, but not every day is going to be sunny and fun, and I can't see my group of friends pulling a trip abroad out their asses so I'll have some free time. Also I'm a bit of an insomniac when I haven't got to be up for school in the mornings. Its not really work I want to be doing either, just reading and then testing it every now and then, kind of like doing a puzzle or a crossword.
Undergraduates don't start till about october I don't think, and even then I think the first week, freshers week, has no lessons, which makes alot of sense. I've got 3 months of nothing, I usually get bored in the 6 week holidays, although I'll be 18 and driving this time.
Worst case scenario is I get a few books that I don't look at till I'm at uni.
If you're interested in doing some problems that are more introductory to the style of undergraduate maths than hard A-Level, might I recommend Steps into Analysis. The idea of the book is that you deduce the results of real analysis (making rigorous what you understand by real series, limits, differentiation &c, and their common properties) by yourself by very gradual progression, so that you become accustomed to the very different approach of pure maths problem solving rather than having alien and pedantic proofs presented in lectures. Not sure how much linear algebra (matrices, eigenvectors &c) you'll have covered in your further pure modules, but I'd try to nail that down too, so that you'll understand the lectures first time round, which would be definitely advisable.
Don't worry about the Applied side. The material, in my experience, is much more a continuation of the type of A-Level problems that you'll be used to solving, eg, often to do with calculating or manipulating integrals, solving differential equations &c. The applications for applied have to start from the basics, since people from different exam boards and options will have covered different material.
I'm guessing analysis is one of the big things, its been mentioned a few times. From the wikipedia article I can only guess its something to do with limits and such, which I was kind of expecting. I'm not really sure what to expect of it though, everyone always says the work is very different from A-level.
We did some matrix work in FP3, finding the determinant and inverse of 2x2 and 3x3 matrices, finding eigenvectors and eigenvalues, and some transfomation stuff was the main bulk of it. It was sort of shown to us but not really explained what it does, or what its used for.
I think my main fear is that everything will be like a STEP paper and I'll constantly be getting stuck and getting frustrated for hours. Then again further maths was alot like that the first term or so.
flip me man, did I deserve that, thats some pwerful neg rep you got there. Im sorry, but i think its a case of mistaken identity, ive actually never negged you in my life.
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