I swear AS Maths compared to other AS subjects is easy

I thought this was practiced a lot in the textbook?


4/4, is it?

To be fair, maths at A-Level is one of the most universal subjects and has to cater for people from all backgrounds, be it somebody wanting to do law to people wanting to study maths, as such - it has to cater for this broad base that other subjects don't have to deal with, or at least not to as great an extent.

Well said.

A shame so many people have this stupid mindset of "How the hell is differentiating gonna help me in life?".. It's as much about the way of thinking as it is the actual content

IKR, it kept cropping up on that other thread about that article that Jenkins wrote. It's not so much the content but the problem solving mindset (admittedly our A-Level could do with some proper problem solving instead of what we currently have in place) that we need to develop.

You sure?

These were the last 2 questions

http://puu.sh/nDK1W.png

http://puu.sh/nDK2Q.png

I'm on a different exam board I think.

Ah ok

Edexcel got a lot of complaints last year

I had OCR. Got its own Hitler rant video, mentioned thestudentroom a few times.

Agreed although you do get some great ones like NUS, Ecole Polytechnique, ETH Zurich etc

NUS is extremely competitive! I know people who've gone there and they really struggled to keep up with the Asians. Germany has some great polytechnics, but I feel like the biggest disadvantage these schools have is that they don't have the "college" atmosphere, you feel?

We'll considering they have longer school hours I.e at school 7am-8am compulsory exercise then lessons are 8am-5pm Mon-Friday + "optional" Sunday school + Revision classes held on Saturday = Grinding 24/7.

They're most likely in bed by 11pm latest and have to be up by roughly by 6am.
Though, the education system there isn't suited/caters for all types of people as it does in UK. If you fail in China its If you fail in UK, you try again etc ...



Yeah, UK/US universities>all.

I was really worried about doing maths because I expected it to be an absolute nightmare. However, I find it much easier than chemistry and physics. With maths, once you understand how to answer the questions, all you have to do is keep practicing. Whereas with the sciences, you are constantly learning new concepts and mechanisms and definitions etc. In summary, I discovered that I am better at the mathematical part of science.

I hesitate to use the word 'question', a question should stimulate the mind and require you to think for yourself.

"With maths, once you understand how to answer the questions, all you have to do is keep practicing. Whereas with the sciences, you are constantly learning new concepts and mechanisms and definitions etc"
NO! NO! NO!
With A-Level maths, sure, a terrible mathematician can score well with adequate practice. But the prescriptive, mechanical and formulatic nature of A-Level maths is not an accurate repersentation of maths as a whole. "Whereas with the sciences, you are constantly learning new concepts". This also applys to A-Level maths, you are always learning new and exciting concepts that were somebodys bright idea, their eureka moment per se. Unfortunately you will not be taught the history, nor the backbone of the method; you will only be taught to use it in generic 'questions'. I hesitate to use the word 'question', a question should stimulate the mind and require you to think for yourself. I agree however that AS Maths is easy, because the questions are in such a manner that you can do exactly what you said in the former ("once you understand how to answer the questions, all you have to do is keep practicing".

But given the leniency of our system, I don't see why we can't gradually make A-level Maths more challenging

Hmmm good point, but what I meant was that in maths (A-level), you are just taught the methods and perhaps the basic history of the concept, and after that, all you have to do is solve 'questions' based around this. But with the sciences,you have to know the 'What, why, when, how" for each concept (therefore more memorisation, more time-consuming and harder to get a good grade). For AS maths, nearly each question contains the words "solve", "find" or "show" which requires less understanding of the actual concepts, so is easier.