How hard is Further Maths A Level?

Currently im revising for C1 C2 S1 S2 D1 and FP1
(next year C3 C4 M1 FP2/FP3 M2 D2/FP3,,,, you dont have to do both FP2 and 3 on OCR in year 13)

Now ive finished all the modules its all just revision and im doing between 2 and 4 past papers a day (some take less than 45 minutes) and never go over the time limit of 90 minutes. When you find a problem you look at your notes or a revision guide and learn from your mistakes when marking. As further maths seems to strengthen your normal maths most of your focus ends up being on the harder modules (S2 for example) sat after the june holiday, my plan at the moment is to get keep up getting A's in my mocks and leaving my hardest module for solid revision and re-teaching it to myself (S2) mainly in the june holiday. I think the time taken up is just the same as a normal A-level, my school recommend and hours work outside of the classroom for every hour in (so sixteen a week overall), and two during revision time after the easter holiday, more during study leave. i hope this helps a little, its really not as daunting as it may seem, i find it comforting how you know exactly what is in each module and exam so can prepare quite easily for it!

Thanks for the reply and it does seem a bit daunting however I am serious considering taking up further maths. If I do I will start working from day one and maintain a consistent 16 hours a week outside of school from September. All the best with your exam and hopefully you achieve top grades.

I only achieved a 'B' at GCSE Maths but I'm on track for A* in Maths and should self teach
majority of FM to a A grade standard over the summer before university.

FM is just more maths content, which providing you're willing to put in the work isn't too difficult
but just a bit time consuming at times, especially with the latter mechanics modules.

A level Further maths isn't just more content, actually if you break it down It has less content but the hard part is getting your head around the content, I find it really hard to believe that you taught yourself the whole of further math in one summer

A level Further maths isn't just more content, actually if you break it down It has less content but the hard part is getting your head around the content, I find it really hard to believe that you taught yourself the whole of further math in one summer

It's not hard honestly, most of it is very simple. It's all about practice. But if you found GCSE Maths hard and struggled to get a 7, yeah chances are you'll find A-level Maths hard let alone Further Maths. If you coulf easily get 8/9 in GCSE and get 80-85%+ easily without practice, you'll be fine doing Further in most cases.

However, I and others in my class personally have found this one topic called Geometric Representations of Roots of Unity and Geometric series of Complex numbers to be extremely difficult, although the latter is alot easier after some practice.

Another thing you will find hard is Further Mechanics, but this is also extremely easy once you have enough practice and get some of the Physics.

Apart from that, everything else ia actually very easy especially differential equations which you really just need to memorise the method and it's basically free 12 marks or so. A lot of Further Maths topics for me have been long, not hard but long. As in the questions just take loads of steps or many steps but include tiny calculations multiple times which can give room for error to due silly mistakes of mis-writing a 1 or x, not mistakes due to your maths being wrong.

But yes in my honest opinion, the hardest topics are those 2 complex number topics. Everything else is very straightforward and if you're practice is up and going you will find it straightforward too.

Remember you don't need 100% to get an A*.

BUT IF YOU DO NOT WORK AT IT OR PRACTICE YOU WILL FIND THIS VERY HARD BECAUSE YOU WILL BE SOOOOOOO BEHIND. Further Maths is a topic imo where if you get behind then it's very hard to catch up coz the pace is strong, especially if you do 4 alevels and Alevel maths in 6 montha and Further in 12 months (like in my school).

If you don't practice, then yeah you will complain like the general population who do say Further Maths is hard. It's not, the difficulty is the same as A2 Alevel Maths, except you DO MORE MATHS.

Stop bumping old threads please, this is 4 years old.

Stop bumping old threads please, this is 4 years old.

I disagree, it is more content. Hyperbolic functions it's just more trig like you did for half the book really in Alevel maths. Differential equations, just memorise your integrating factor and the methods for a 2nd order differential equation. Polar coordinates, okay alright this you do need to get your head around as well as for that last bit on Complex Numbers.

Ofc I'm speaking from an Edexcel board's point of view.

But ngl, if someone struggled with A-level maths then Further Maths isn't just more content and it will be quite hard for them in the space of 18 months and it will be too hard and need to get your head around it. But yeah if you actually count it, there are less individual topics in Further Maths.


Each to their own I guess. My opinion afterall innit based on what me and my classmates have experienced.

Wdym its more content? Objectively its not.

Well it is. Most of it is based on the same old regular Maths things, but there are methods you need to know and practice

But it's not? You have a fewer amount of chapters to cover. There's no ambiguity here lmao. FM has fewer chapters I don't understand what you're confused about? Count each chapter in each module, and you'll realise that there are fewer chapters. You also don't even have to cover each module unlike in Normal A level Maths where you have to cover every module. Wel not now because they strayed away from modules.

You may be a genius and think Further maths is easier than regular maths or whatever, but fewer chapters doesn’t mean no content, and surely the double maths combined is more than single maths regardless of how hard you think either of them are. There’s also the key point that the number of chapters has nothing to do with content. In the old Further maths syllabus FP3 had fewer chapters than FP2, but almost everyone would agree FP3 is a lot harder and has more to learn

If you read my first comment I stated that I find FM quite hard. Also, the discussion here isn't about the difficulty it's about volume and objectively FM has a lower amount of volume in terms of chapters and content. The content, however, is much more difficult than Normal maths and needs more intuitive thinking which is what I stated in my first comment as well. I never talked about difficulty and volume being directly related so I don't know where you got that idea from.
Also, I'm far from a genius Lmao.