Mega A Level Maths Thread MK II

It still won't let me rep you, and I still owe you some rep from the other question you helped me with! I will get it all done eventually though .

Hello.
I was quite surprised to discover that a few of the international A level maths papers were easier than the British composites. I'd assumed that it'd be double the difficulty

Don't worry about it - if I wanted rep I have a formula for obtaining it anyway:

1 - Visit relationships forum
2 - post something insulting/controversial
3 - ???
4 - Profit! http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?p=42816054#post42816054



Oh no, not the whole Maths - Race debate again. This reminds me of my Cambridge interview. I was waiting for my second interview, when a Chinese girl walked in, and came and sat in the group of people where I was sitting. She asked who else was applying for Maths, and I was the only one there. She then asked me if I'd seen any other Chinese Maths applicants. I thought she felt awkward as an international amongst the home students, so I responded with "I haven't seen any, but don't worry, the rest of us don't bite" at which point she replied with "No, it's not that - we Chinese are very good at Math(s) and I want to know how much competition I have".

(I don't know which I hope for more - her not getting in (which would wipe the smugness off her face or her getting in and meeting LotF (which would wipe the smugness off her face in a place where I could see it))

Don't worry about it - if I wanted rep I have a formula for obtaining it anyway:

1 - Visit relationships forum
2 - post something insulting/controversial
3 - ???
4 - Profit! http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?p=42816054#post42816054



Oh no, not the whole Maths - Race debate again. This reminds me of my Cambridge interview. I was waiting for my second interview, when a Chinese girl walked in, and came and sat in the group of people where I was sitting. She asked who else was applying for Maths, and I was the only one there. She then asked me if I'd seen any other Chinese Maths applicants. I thought she felt awkward as an international amongst the home students, so I responded with "I haven't seen any, but don't worry, the rest of us don't bite" at which point she replied with "No, it's not that - we Chinese are very good at Math(s) and I want to know how much competition I have".

(I don't know which I hope for more - her not getting in (which would wipe the smugness off her face) or her getting in and meeting LotF (which would wipe the smugness off her face in a place where I could see it))

Hello.
I was quite surprised to discover that a few of the international A level maths papers were easier than the British composites. I'd assumed that it'd be double the difficulty

Which ones? Very few (if any) are going to be that much harder, I think you're overrating the difficulty of most international syllabuses here.

Perhaps... I was just basing it on transfers I met from other countries.

Which ones? Very few (if any) are going to be that much harder, I think you're overrating the difficulty of most international syllabuses here.

Oh no, not the whole Maths - Race debate again. This reminds me of my Cambridge interview. I was waiting for my second interview, when a Chinese girl walked in, and came and sat in the group of people where I was sitting. She asked who else was applying for Maths, and I was the only one there. She then asked me if I'd seen any other Chinese Maths applicants. I thought she felt awkward as an international amongst the home students, so I responded with "I haven't seen any, but don't worry, the rest of us don't bite" at which point she replied with "No, it's not that - we Chinese are very good at Math(s) and I want to know how much competition I have".

(I don't know which I hope for more - her not getting in (which would wipe the smugness off her face) or her getting in and meeting LotF (which would wipe the smugness off her face in a place where I could see it))

We had an exchange student come to my 6th form for 5 months from Czech Slovakia or however its spelt where they already covered what we consider A level Maths in what is equivalent to our GCSE years! She was literally going to the lesson and walking out 5 minutes later as she already knew it all! I also showed her my amount of work and it only took her a week to get to grips with it before being able to attempt all the questions, damn how I wish I was that smart!

I thought international M1 and international C2 were easier than UK M1 and C2

We're not talking about that that's technically still UK syllabus, as it's by a UK-based board (edexcel).

Something like Singapore or Hong Kong A-Levels is more of what we're getting at.

M2 June 2005 paper, Q5 part b), I got it wrong and can't understand how on the mark scheme they get x= -2/7 u. Please help, link here for the paper and mark scheme http://mathspapers.co.uk/edexcel.html

Oh I see, yeah I have noticed that a few of my friends abroad (apart from America) have generally harder maths than us at times

That's the one and yeah, I still wasn't going to let her beat me so I got introduced into what her syllabus covers and it had stuff like Number Theory and Group Theory and so on, it was quite an eye opener!

America

I think the difficulty level of maths in America varies a lot depending on what classes you take, whereas for the UK it's quite standardised. The more adequate mathematicians can take up more challenging courses if they so desire iirc. Like "college-level classes in high school" or whatever

or AP maths. Additionally, I think they have better systems in place for gifted students. I.e students at 12 learning calc.

Yep, where I used to live: Trinidad seems to cover more stuff on their pure maths and applied maths sylabi which is not to say the sylabi are that much harder.

America

I think the difficulty level of maths in America varies a lot depending on what classes you take, whereas for the UK it's quite standardised. The more adequate mathematicians can take up more challenging courses if they so desire iirc. Like "college-level classes in high school" or whatever