My GYG journal: Aspiring Mathematician

OP

Original post by Kumi150

For some context, I have done my A levels this year and hope to study at Warwick. My offer(Maths) requires me to get A*A*AA. I will share my daily routine which is 5.5 hrs of further reading every day. But this is subject to change.

Recap of this week

Monday : Weekly Plan, Tutoring My Brother, Working on Analysis
Tuesday: Diff. Eq. , Group Theory, Probability, Mechanics & Rel
Wednesday: Review of Anki, Numbers & Sets, More Diff Eq(currently my favourite), More Linear Algebra
Thursday: Did STEP 2 & 3 papers, More Group Theory, More Analysis
Friday: I need to do more Probability and Numbers & Sets stuff

Reply 2

Good luck for year 13 right? Wish you all the best <3

Reply 3

OP

My summer plans: Finish Part IA Groups with all the example sheets .This will enable me to be acquired well before the actual term starts. I'm already halfway down.

Finish 5 Step 2 & 3 Papers: STEP is my weakness. I am terrible at solving STEP style problems. Currently I get 1 1 , sometimes 1 2. But this has to change!

Read the official Foundations notes (Warwick Uni official notes): They are incredibly well written imo. Though, I can't say the same for the example sheets - I found them kinda boring.

Make ANKI flashcards that will cover everything I have done up to now.

Reply 4

OP

Original post by Trickia

Good luck for year 13 right? Wish you all the best <3

I wanted to let you know that I've finished Y13, just in case that's what you were asking about 😄
I got offers for Warwick(firm) and Durham(insurance)
My parents really encouraged me to apply ICL and UCL, but honestly, I'm not too keen on studying in London. 🙃

Reply 5

Original post by Kumi150

I wanted to let you know that I've finished Y13, just in case that's what you were asking about 😄
I got offers for Warwick(firm) and Durham(insurance)
My parents really encouraged me to apply ICL and UCL, but honestly, I'm not too keen on studying in London. 🙃

Oh so you just finished oops mb😅
Fair enough is it bc the city is too much e.g crowded smth like that?

(edited 8 months ago)

Reply 6

OP

Original post by Trickia

Oh so you just finished oops mb😅
Fair enough is it bc the city is too much e.g crowded smth like that?

Yeah mainly that :tongue:

.
I suppose you're in Y13? What a levels are you doing?

Reply 7

Original post by Kumi150

Yeah mainly that :tongue:

.
I suppose you're in Y13? What a levels are you doing?

Oh sorry to disappoint but I have yet to do my gcses💀
I'm going into Yr 11 this new school year and I have done 1/10 gcses

Reply 8

Original post by Kumi150

I wanted to let you know that I've finished Y13, just in case that's what you were asking about 😄
I got offers for Warwick(firm) and Durham(insurance)
My parents really encouraged me to apply ICL and UCL, but honestly, I'm not too keen on studying in London. 🙃

Then you should be going thru a level results day next thursday

I hope you get the grades you need/want!

Reply 9

Skiwi

13

Original post by Kumi150

My summer plans: Finish Part IA Groups with all the example sheets .This will enable me to be acquired well before the actual term starts. I'm already halfway down.

Finish 5 Step 2 & 3 Papers: STEP is my weakness. I am terrible at solving STEP style problems. Currently I get 1 1 , sometimes 1 2. But this has to change!

Read the official Foundations notes (Warwick Uni official notes): They are incredibly well written imo. Though, I can't say the same for the example sheets - I found them kinda boring.

Make ANKI flashcards that will cover everything I have done up to now.

Saul's part of the foundation notes(roughly the first 6 weeks of content, up to chapter 17 I believe) is probably the best notes you'll get for any of first year maths module imo, only Keiths analysis 2 comes close.
Allegedly the foundations notes quality dips once you get to Daves part for the last 4 weeks but as I didn't take this part of the course I can't really say.

Reply 10

OP

Original post by Trickia

Oh sorry to disappoint but I have yet to do my gcses💀
I'm going into Yr 11 this new school year and I have done 1/10 gcses

Good luck with gcses xx
Year 11 year was one of my worst years tbh, cuz of COVID :ashamed2:

but hope you'll smash yours!!

Reply 11

OP

Original post by Skiwi

Saul's part of the foundation notes(roughly the first 6 weeks of content, up to chapter 17 I believe) is probably the best notes you'll get for any of first year maths module imo, only Keiths analysis 2 comes close.
Allegedly the foundations notes quality dips once you get to Daves part for the last 4 weeks but as I didn't take this part of the course I can't really say.

Haha! I totally agree with you- the examples provided are great also great remarks on history of mathematics! I especially liked the part on WOP, but I’m not really enjoying the logic sections at the moment. I know that logic is a big part of proofs in pure maths, but all those tables (especially for 3+ statements) are so long to fill. I haven’t started looking at Keith’s notes yet, but I downloaded them and have some prelim work to do before learning about diff + integration.

By the way, are you a student at Warwick?😊

Reply 12

Skiwi

13

Original post by Kumi150

Haha! I totally agree with you- the examples provided are great also great remarks on history of mathematics! I especially liked the part on WOP, but I’m not really enjoying the logic sections at the moment. I know that logic is a big part of proofs in pure maths, but all those tables (especially for 3+ statements) are so long to fill. I haven’t started looking at Keith’s notes yet, but I downloaded them and have some prelim work to do before learning about diff + integration.

By the way, are you a student at Warwick?😊

I felt the same way about the logic part, it gets tedious and repetitive fast. But come exam time you'll be hoping it comes up because it's basically free marks if you've prepared decently.

Yh I'm at Warwick, going into second year maths&physics( I've requested a transfer to the standalone maths course but Dave hasn't made a decision yet).

(edited 8 months ago)

Reply 13

OP

Original post by Skiwi

I felt the same way about the logic part, it gets tedious and repetitive fast. But come exam time you'll be hoping it comes up because it's basically free marks if you've prepared decently.

Yh I'm at Warwick, going into second year maths&physics( I've requested a transfer to the standalone maths course but Dave hasn't made a decision yet).

Haha, I would assume that'll be the case as logic is not hard just computation-heavy.

How is Warwick for physics? I am planning to take first year Mech&Relativity module; and maybe the second term Electricity module. From the lecture notes and exercises, it didn't seem like a big jump from A Level Physics and Further Mechanics. Would you recommend taking it?

Reply 14

Skiwi

13

Original post by Kumi150

Haha, I would assume that'll be the case as logic is not hard just computation-heavy.

How is Warwick for physics? I am planning to take first year Mech&Relativity module; and maybe the second term Electricity module. From the lecture notes and exercises, it didn't seem like a big jump from A Level Physics and Further Mechanics. Would you recommend taking it?

The physics modules are all decent, it's a lot of going over A-level physics but doing it properly. Adding in the maths essentially.

The mechanics module is all of A-level maths mechanics and all of further maths mechanics squished into one module, plus rotational stuff(some exam boards did a bit of this apparently but you do none on Edexcel) and then the special relativity stuff. It isn't really that hard imo, but it's very broad. If you were decent with mechanics at A-level this module is basically unfailable even if you skip the special relativity question.

Electricity&magnetism is the supposed "hardest" first year physics module. However I really enjoyed it and it was by far my favourite physics module and it's probably up there for favourite module in first year(might be slightly biased because it was my second highest exam mark lol). Assuming the lecturer doesn't change, Erwin is the best lecturer I had all year and his notes are excellent.

TLDR, I recommend taking both if you enjoyed physics at A-level. Especially if you think you'll want to do physics modules in year 2. But if you want to maximize your EOY average there are easier options

Reply 15

Original post by Kumi150

Good luck with gcses xx
Year 11 year was one of my worst years tbh, cuz of COVID :ashamed2:

but hope you'll smash yours!!

Covid rlly was crap. Thank you xx

(edited 8 months ago)

Reply 16

OP

Here is a recap of my did:

First I went to the gym, pretty tiring sesh (´〜｀)

Then I studied Analysis for about 1-2 hours, using this

Spoiler

The Oxford Mathematics department has done an amazing job with their organization. As an outsider, I have been able to access all of the course material and the notes are incredibly clear. I am currently studying series, but next week I plan to revisit real numbers concepts such as ordering and countability.

Also I have been studying Linear Algebra by Strang and am currently working on Matrix Algebra, including suffix notation and multiplication. Finally, I finished my day with reading couple of pages from an introduction to ODEs by Robinson, where I am currently focusing on second-order equations. There are many interesting substitutions that one needs to know about, which is a bit concerning at times :frown:

Reply 17

OP

Today started pretty good. I started off by reviewing some flashcards (Anki), stuff like ODEs, Analysis, and Algebra 1. Then I hit the gym for an hour and a half, but it wasn’t as productive as I’d hoped. I sorted out my plans for next week and I’m aiming to do 4-5 hours of work each day(including stuff like tutoring). Right now, I’m working on a gym plan for the next week. This evening, I’ll be going over my Foundations notes (I’m up to Chapter 8).

If I’ve got some time left over, I wouldn’t mind doing a bit more Prob. Anyone got any good resources they can recommend?

Reply 18

OP

Yesterday, I spent 3 hours studying and the rest of my day was mostly spent on tutoring and going to the gym. Here’s a summary of what I worked on:

Foundations: I focused on the Countability section and didn’t find it challenging, yet quite intriguing concepts. I’m currently working on the example sheets.
Differential Equations: I’m loving this subject! I’ve started learning Matlab to plot ODEs.
Reviewed ANKI: I also spent some time reviewing my ANKI flashcards.

Today's plan is a little different, I will be doing something different and looking at the Dynamics notes from Oxford . I will also study some Probability and finish with Analysis. Hope you have a productive day :smile:

Reply 19

OP