Oxford PAT (edexcel student) and Alevel Maths

i need to do fp1 and fp2 or m1 and m2 privately either pure or mechanics. if i do mechanics i would need to do pure at school and do mechanics with a private teacher?
Which should i do in school?
Secondly, is the oxford PAT mainly based on pure topics (fp1 fp2) or mechanics? (m1 and m2) because i remember that oxford recommend doing mechanics but my friend told me that most the syllabus for the PAT looks like pure topics (fp1 and fp2) so why would they recommend mechanics?
Please help a lost starting year 12 student

Not sure about your first question but the PAT syllabus is given here. It's based on the AS courses so there won't be anything from FP1 or FP2. If you've done AS Maths and Physics then you will probably know everything you need to know. Mechanics modules are useful generally but you do not need to have taken M1 or M2 to do the PAT.

are you sure because i do edexcel and my friend finish a levels and when he finished it i asked him to look at the syllabus and he said he learned most of the syllabus in fp1 and fp2 pure math modules /:

You are more than welcome to look at the specification or the past papers for yourself - they're all available online. I have never seen anything that requires you to have taken FP1 or FP2. I mean, just think about it - Further Maths isn't even an entry requirement for Physics at Oxford and even for people who do take Further Maths, it's possible that some of them wouldn't have done FP1 yet and most of them wouldn't have even started FP2 yet. There's no way FP1 or FP2 content could come up in the PAT.

so basically its from the core units since alevel maths require them for all?

I sat the PAT last year and there was some things I hadn't learnt sitting EDEXCEL AS level maths and FM, such as integration of trig and integration of fractions

The PAT as well as the MAT only test AS topics. Specifically for the PAT this would be Phys1+2 and some basic AS pure maths. Check the syllabus on the website, that's the only way to find a definitive answer to your question.

That's what I thought but as brogan65 pointed out, there was A2 maths in the 2014 paper. Not just on one question either.

A2 on your board, but perhaps AS in another board. Hence why you need to look at the syllabus. It is broadly AS, but you have to realise that there is more than one exam board

Nope, it's in A2 for Edexcel, AQA and OCR.

It's supposed to only test knowledge from C1 and C2 as far as I know. However, do look at brogan65's response...



I just had a look at the 2014 and you appear to be right - how interesting. If I remember correctly, the natural logarithm isn't covered until C3 and you don't explicitly cover integrating functions of this form until C4 so I'm very surprised that this was allowed to appear, particularly since the specification only says "...integration of polynomials including fractional and negative powers".


That's what I thought but as brogan65 pointed out, there was A2 maths in the 2014 paper. Not just on one question either.

Checked IB? Checked WJEC? It doesn't just apply to A-levels, any first year content

It does appear in IB Mathematics SL (I'm assuming that's the AS equivalent?) but it seems a little bit bizarre including content that only appears in the first year content of a course a tiny minority of applicants will be studying? On top of that, there isn't any mention of natural logarithms or integrating any function that isn't a polynomial on the syllabus.

Calculus: differentiation and integration of polynomials including fractional and negative powers

Integrating a linear polynomial that has a negative power/is fractional would count as producing the natural log.

E.g. f(x)=1/u(x) ==> Demonstrates fractional
u(x)=1+x ==> demonstrates linear polynomial
f(x)=1/1+x

I would guess that is how they got away with asking it. Do you have the paper where it is asked?

Mind you, they could perhaps even extend it do a improper fraction and integrating using long division and partial fractions which are largely A2 topics, but they do satisfy being polynomials and fractional. I think their syllabus is a bit hairy with that one

Here. I can understand how they'd explain it but I don't understand the point of including that question. If you've done C4 then you will have done a million questions like this, so that question would be a piece of cake. Even a terrible applicant would have a good chance of getting that right. If you haven't even done C3 yet, then that question would be very difficult for you. This question isn't testing how good you are at maths, this is more of a test of how much maths you've covered. It's just giving people who do the entire A2 Maths in Year 12 a huge advantage. This reminds me exactly of a question I got asked in my interview which was extremely easy since I'd covered C4 (deriving the radioactive decay equation) but the interviewer mentioned that some other people had struggled with it - which isn't at all surprising since that question would be nigh on impossible if you haven't studied separating the variables!

Hmmm, I guess they can get away with it then. It does technically fall under those umbrellas I mentioned above

I just don't see anywhere that they expect you to integrate trig functions?

Again you could probably loosely argue that you can derive it from looking at the graph of sin and cos and inspecting that cos varies in the same way that the rate of change of sin does?

Well, either way, you've seen it in a paper now, so obviously it should be known

That's a very loose argument but sure I guess they wouldn't have put it in if they couldn't qualify that it was suitable.

But for the original post, before sitting the PAT I had done C1,C2,M1,S1,D1 and FP1.. Don't remember using anything from FP1 or any of the applied other than some M1 maybe.

But definitely read some more into integration, differentiation and trig.