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How difficult is C3, C4, M1 Edexcel compared to C1, C2, S1?

I found C1, C2 and S1 to be relatively straight forward and I'm planning to self teach some of A2 Maths over the summer

I have previously heard that M1 is basically physics. Considering that I have no prior knowledge apart from physics at a GCSE level, how difficult will it be? Is it worth spending summer going over M1 instead of C3 because it is more difficult?
Original post by Mina_
I found C1, C2 and S1 to be relatively straight forward and I'm planning to self teach some of A2 Maths over the summer

I have previously heard that M1 is basically physics. Considering that I have no prior knowledge apart from physics at a GCSE level, how difficult will it be? Is it worth spending summer going over M1 instead of C3 because it is more difficult?


M1 is easy- very easy. Don't bother revising it during the summer, focus on C3 and C4.
Reply 2
Original post by Mina_
I found C1, C2 and S1 to be relatively straight forward and I'm planning to self teach some of A2 Maths over the summer

I have previously heard that M1 is basically physics. Considering that I have no prior knowledge apart from physics at a GCSE level, how difficult will it be? Is it worth spending summer going over M1 instead of C3 because it is more difficult?


Depends on your preference. If you found C1-2 straight forward and easy, C3-4 will be as well. I personally find all M1-3 10x more harder than C3-4 combined :colondollar:
Reply 3
Original post by Kawaii289
M1 is easy- very easy. Don't bother revising it during the summer, focus on C3 and C4.


You take Physics at AS, so your opinion is slightly biased haha
(edited 7 years ago)
mechanics requires thinking - statastics is a game of calculators tbf, as long as you put in the numbers right in the calculator, boom full marks.
Reply 5
Original post by kkboyk
Depends on your preference. If you found C1-2 straight forward and easy, C3-4 will be as well. I personally find all M1-3 10x more harder than C3-4 combined :colondollar:


Yeah, I imagine this will be me as well :frown:
Everything becomes easy once you get into the swing of things imo. The jump from C1 and C2 to C3 and C4 is not as intense as you think.
C3 I think is kind of easier, or similar in difficulty to, C2. C4 is the 'real' part of A2 but not as impossible or crazy as you might think.

M1 is icky and just requires a different way of thinking and I think the hardest bit is probably being confident with like trig and visualising angles etc. A bit harder than S1, but again, not impossible.
Reply 8
Original post by Mina_
I found C1, C2 and S1 to be relatively straight forward and I'm planning to self teach some of A2 Maths over the summer

I have previously heard that M1 is basically physics. Considering that I have no prior knowledge apart from physics at a GCSE level, how difficult will it be? Is it worth spending summer going over M1 instead of C3 because it is more difficult?


C3/C4 are far harder than C1/C2 however as you go through the AS modules you get better at maths so when you get to C3/C4 it really doesn't seem that hard.

I've never done any physics what so ever not even GCSE and got on with M1 pretty well. The maths in M1 is pretty much C1 stuff but the concepts and understanding is what made it hard for me.
Original post by Mina_
You take Physics at AS, so your opinion is slightly biased haha


Yes I guess so however, M1 is a lot more mathematical than physics. I actually found M1 easier than physics in some cases.

During in the summer holiday i'm planning to study C3-4 and FP2 so it prepares me for step and a head start as well, so in this instance i may be biased.
Depends on each person...i found c3+4 hard at first but i'm doing fine in them now, I don't think the jump between AS to A2 is big so don't worry too much :smile: I haven't done M1 but I've heard a lot of people say its hard...considering you don't do physics A level i'm guessing you might struggle? but who knows maybe you'll find it easier than expected :smile:
Original post by Mina_
I found C1, C2 and S1 to be relatively straight forward and I'm planning to self teach some of A2 Maths over the summer

I have previously heard that M1 is basically physics. Considering that I have no prior knowledge apart from physics at a GCSE level, how difficult will it be? Is it worth spending summer going over M1 instead of C3 because it is more difficult?


Just go over C3. C3 is short. C3 is easy. You can get the concepts into your head in less than a week. Every single other module you do at A2 (if you do further maths especially) is going to revolve around C3 (other than M1). Since you do Physics AS, M1 will also be easy. All of the mechanics stuff in physics are pretty much identical to M1.
I found C4 easiest out of the whole lot :redface:
I studied C4 in 3 days and did well in the exam. It may feel like a step forward but as long as you get the concepts everything else is just a walk in the park.
Original post by Mina_
I found C1, C2 and S1 to be relatively straight forward and I'm planning to self teach some of A2 Maths over the summer

I have previously heard that M1 is basically physics. Considering that I have no prior knowledge apart from physics at a GCSE level, how difficult will it be? Is it worth spending summer going over M1 instead of C3 because it is more difficult?


depends on you for m1 if you like physicsy stuff like forces and how they act on things should be fine but if not then well sorry though idk about c3 and c4 i havnt done them yet we just started them as we did m1 with c1 and c2 the first year
Does your school/college offer S2? If you found S1 straightforward you should be able to cope totally fine with S2. Unless you have a particular desire to do mechanics I would at least consider S2 (although I haven't done M1 so I'm biased - but from what I've heard M1 isn't a breeze, and will be less so if you don't take A level physics).
With M1, each paper is almost the same, there's a limit to what kind of questions they can and will ask so if you do enough practice you can guarantee yourself an A. In my opinion half of the paper doesn't even require any thinking, because there is always going to be something that's been in a past paper. I think you'll understand more once you do it. Once you get it, its very easy to secure very high marks, I don't feel this is the case with S1.

C3 and C4 can be a bit more unpredictable, the content isn't actually that hard but the exams can be more demanding as new things tend to come up more than with M1 (and all of AS maths for that matter)

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