Advice for starting A level Maths, Further Maths, Physics & Economics
Hello everyone, so I finished my GCSE exams(and FSMQ AddMaths) on the 18th June so I'm going to start preparing for my A levels because I'm addicting to revising(I'm also quite confident with my GCSE exams, especially Maths and Physics). For A level I'm aiming to study Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Economics. I don't plan on working on Further Maths yet because I want to have a look through the normal Maths A level first. The exam boards I'm doing are AQA for Maths and Physics and Edexcel for Economics, I have the A level Maths textbook already and have ordered the Physics and Economics textbooks.
The question I have for this forum is, to people who are doing or have done some of these subjects at A level, are there any particularly difficult topics in these subjects that you wish you'd revised earlier, or got a head start on?
I've done FSMQ AddMaths OCR with GCSE's, which contains some A level content like Logarithms, Integration, Differentiation, Kinematics, Combinatorics and the Binomal Expansion however AddMaths doesn't cover higher order derivatives or differentiation of trigonometric functions, and there is no coverage of A level vectors or statistics which I have seen in the A level book, as well as very little on natural logarithms.
I've also studied GCSE Physics and am happy with everything there but I have not studied anything extra at GCSE concerning Physics and while I've looked at the specification, I'm asking is there anything in particular that is really hard that I should cover?
I haven't studied GCSE Economics(my school didn't give us the option), and besides reading a few books introducing Economics I have not studied the subject before, so any help here would also be especially useful.
Thank you for reading this, have a nice day.
The question I have for this forum is, to people who are doing or have done some of these subjects at A level, are there any particularly difficult topics in these subjects that you wish you'd revised earlier, or got a head start on?
I've done FSMQ AddMaths OCR with GCSE's, which contains some A level content like Logarithms, Integration, Differentiation, Kinematics, Combinatorics and the Binomal Expansion however AddMaths doesn't cover higher order derivatives or differentiation of trigonometric functions, and there is no coverage of A level vectors or statistics which I have seen in the A level book, as well as very little on natural logarithms.
I've also studied GCSE Physics and am happy with everything there but I have not studied anything extra at GCSE concerning Physics and while I've looked at the specification, I'm asking is there anything in particular that is really hard that I should cover?
I haven't studied GCSE Economics(my school didn't give us the option), and besides reading a few books introducing Economics I have not studied the subject before, so any help here would also be especially useful.
Thank you for reading this, have a nice day.
A-level vectors are not a big jump from GCSE. Okay, you do it in 3d but that's just an extra row of the column.
I think electricity in A-level physics is a topic that may take a while to get. It doesn't require a lot of extra knowledge from GCSE but it's sort of detailed in places you hadn't thought about. If you're planning on getting ahead I recommend you go for this topic. And maybe moments as well.
Differentiation of trig functions doesn't come up until year 13, and higher-order derivatives aren't anything special, you just differentiate again and boom, second derivative.
I mean just... you really don't need to do anything with maths. Or economics. If I didn't get things at first, I understood them eventually and you will too.
I think electricity in A-level physics is a topic that may take a while to get. It doesn't require a lot of extra knowledge from GCSE but it's sort of detailed in places you hadn't thought about. If you're planning on getting ahead I recommend you go for this topic. And maybe moments as well.
Differentiation of trig functions doesn't come up until year 13, and higher-order derivatives aren't anything special, you just differentiate again and boom, second derivative.
I mean just... you really don't need to do anything with maths. Or economics. If I didn't get things at first, I understood them eventually and you will too.
Original post by Sinnoh
A-level vectors are not a big jump from GCSE. Okay, you do it in 3d but that's just an extra row of the column.
I think electricity in A-level physics is a topic that may take a while to get. It doesn't require a lot of extra knowledge from GCSE but it's sort of detailed in places you hadn't thought about. If you're planning on getting ahead I recommend you go for this topic. And maybe moments as well.
Differentiation of trig functions doesn't come up until year 13, and higher-order derivatives aren't anything special, you just differentiate again and boom, second derivative.
I mean just... you really don't need to do anything with maths. Or economics. If I didn't get things at first, I understood them eventually and you will too.
I think electricity in A-level physics is a topic that may take a while to get. It doesn't require a lot of extra knowledge from GCSE but it's sort of detailed in places you hadn't thought about. If you're planning on getting ahead I recommend you go for this topic. And maybe moments as well.
Differentiation of trig functions doesn't come up until year 13, and higher-order derivatives aren't anything special, you just differentiate again and boom, second derivative.
I mean just... you really don't need to do anything with maths. Or economics. If I didn't get things at first, I understood them eventually and you will too.
Thank you so much
. Maths is my best subject(I got 95% in my mocks) so I am pretty confident that I can understand it fast, I just wanted an idea of what was particularly hard. I was slightly wrong then in the way then the second derivative is covered in AddMaths(but not under the name higher order derivatives) we just hadn't done anything more than that(I thought that was about 3rd and 4th derivatives but I doubt that is very practical). Thank you for the advice on Physics, I will make sure to cover electricity and moments when my book arrives. I will probably look over Economics anyway but thank you for telling me about it.Original post by Hasham123
maybe get a head start on mechanics for physics since I found that soul crushing when I first started
(I just finished my A levels in maths , physics and economics , all Aqa)
(I just finished my A levels in maths , physics and economics , all Aqa)
Thank you for the advice for physics
, I'll cover Mechanics when my book arrives. Did you find it hard because there was a lot of content, or was the content just really hard, or both?Original post by Zoqua
Thank you so much . Maths is my best subject(I got 95% in my mocks) so I am pretty confident that I can understand it fast, I just wanted an idea of what was particularly hard. I was slightly wrong then in the way then the second derivative is covered in AddMaths(but not under the name higher order derivatives) we just hadn't done anything more than that(I thought that was about 3rd and 4th derivatives but I doubt that is very practical). Thank you for the advice on Physics, I will make sure to cover electricity and moments when my book arrives. I will probably look over Economics anyway but thank you for telling me about it.
Thank you for the advice for physics, I'll cover Mechanics when my book arrives. Did you find it hard because there was a lot of content, or was the content just really hard, or both?
. Maths is my best subject(I got 95% in my mocks) so I am pretty confident that I can understand it fast, I just wanted an idea of what was particularly hard. I was slightly wrong then in the way then the second derivative is covered in AddMaths(but not under the name higher order derivatives) we just hadn't done anything more than that(I thought that was about 3rd and 4th derivatives but I doubt that is very practical). Thank you for the advice on Physics, I will make sure to cover electricity and moments when my book arrives. I will probably look over Economics anyway but thank you for telling me about it.Thank you for the advice for physics
, I'll cover Mechanics when my book arrives. Did you find it hard because there was a lot of content, or was the content just really hard, or both?The hardest topic in A-level single maths is probably second-year calculus, although you may have some experience with the chain rule and product rule already. Integration can take a lot of practice.
For further maths I can't think of a particular hardest topic. Matrices can look weird and confusing and nonsensical initially but once you get them, you get them and they become much more straightforward. Plus you'll be using a calculator that can do calculations with them.
Original post by Zoqua
Thank you for the advice for physics , I'll cover Mechanics when my book arrives. Did you find it hard because there was a lot of content, or was the content just really hard, or both?
, I'll cover Mechanics when my book arrives. Did you find it hard because there was a lot of content, or was the content just really hard, or both?When I first started I found mechanics really hard ( in that content was hard)
(edited 4 years ago)
Original post by Hasham123
When I first started I found mechanics really hard ( in that content was hard)
Thank you for clarifying
i’m also planning on doing a level physics and maths , you can get head start to ‘ ‘ books , i’m unsure of whether to get the head start to a level or head start to as level books though
(edited 4 years ago)
I only do maths out of all those subjects, I don’t think it’s vital for you to start early and I feel like maths is a subject which is hard to teach yourself. The best advice I could give you is to make sure you understand everything and practice!! If you don’t it’s easy to fall behind, but if you keep on top of everything you’ll be fine!!
Original post by Izzyf14
I only do maths out of all those subjects, I don’t think it’s vital for you to start early and I feel like maths is a subject which is hard to teach yourself. The best advice I could give you is to make sure you understand everything and practice!! If you don’t it’s easy to fall behind, but if you keep on top of everything you’ll be fine!!
I've already got the A level maths textbook and to be honest it doesn't look that hard. I've done the first few algebra topics, and due to doing further maths I already know Logarithms, simple differentiation(but not trigonometric), simple integration(but not trigonometric) and kinematics so I'm not too worried about it, the further maths stuff interests me more as I don't have a textbook for that. Do you know what that involves? Or when you say maths do you only mean single?
Original post by Georgie3333
i’m also planning on doing a level physics and maths , you can get head start to ‘ ‘ books , i’m unsure of whether to get the head start to a level or head start to as level books though
I've already bought the main A level books, the head start to books seem to be really easy GCSE stuff(I got 95% in my maths mock and 88% in my physics mock, I'm good with GCSE content), so I just went straight ahead and bought the main books for the A level. Maths seems to be quite easy from what I have seen so far(but to be fair I have only done the first 5 chapters or so), physics does seem to be a bit harder(a lot of particle physics that they don't introduce us to in GCSE Physics, and I've only looked at the first few chapters).
Original post by Zoqua
I've already got the A level maths textbook and to be honest it doesn't look that hard. I've done the first few algebra topics, and due to doing further maths I already know Logarithms, simple differentiation(but not trigonometric), simple integration(but not trigonometric) and kinematics so I'm not too worried about it, the further maths stuff interests me more as I don't have a textbook for that. Do you know what that involves? Or when you say maths do you only mean single?
Tbh I don’t do further maths so wouldn’t know!! The only thing I do know about further maths is that you look at complex numbers. But from the sounds of it you seem to know a lot already so will probably be fine for the first year!! I’ve just finished my first year and never remember learning trigonometric differentiation so I reckon first year shouldn’t be too hard for you
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