How do people find Further Maths?

Heey

I'm thinking of doing further maths a-level because I love maths :biggrin:

I got an A* at GCSE in year 10, and just got 91ums on my C1 from January (done in year eleven)
I got a C in S1, which I'm retaking in June because it was VERY accelerated.
How are people doing in further maths? Is it like really difficult? (Exam board Edexcel)
Thank youu :biggrin:

Reply 1

bonana567

Hey, I am currently in year 12 and am taking further maths, so I will share my experience so far with you. I joined a new school for 6th form, and in my further maths class there are around 15 people - virtually all of them have taken AS level maths early, like yourself :wink:

I however, have not, and as a consequence have been struggling due to the fact that a lot of the further maths material requires you to know some of the C3 and C4 specification. I got an A* in gcse and have just received my C1 grade from January and got 100%. I believe this was because further maths assumed that I knew all of C1 from the outset, therefore normal AS maths is a walk in the park. I think you will be wise to take it. One thing to take in mind is the lack of a good textbook (for the aqa board at least), and as a result you will find yourself dipping into many different textbooks and searching for what is relevant, so in that respect the course does entail a level of maturity in terms of getting the books and doing some reading yourself. Hope I helped

Reply 2

Aristotle's' Disciple

It's easy. I honestly don't think I'd know the difference. I'm doing better than people who are just taking normal maths. It's piss, although taking addition further maths would be going too far i would say!

Reply 3

QuantumOverlord

Original post by bexlovescandy

Heey

I'm thinking of doing further maths a-level because I love maths :biggrin:

I am in my second year in Further Maths, I will try and help.

Getting 91UMS in C1 in year11 would suggest you are an able mathematician, which means you should be good at further maths! true mathematicians also seem to find D1,D2 and S1 difficult too :P

Anyway the real thing about further maths, is being mathematically confident, someone who learns by route could get through Maths, but this is not the case for Further Maths, you need to be really confident with fundemental skills.

I did Fp1 Last year and am doing FP2 this year, these are the pure units which you might do. Personally I found FP1 slightly harder than C3 or C4 but only a little. FP2 is university maths, and is Much harder than anything else at A level.

So I would say the only rock hard unit is FP2 which comprimises 1/6 of the Further Maths unit. The applied units are Normal A level maths level.

I hope some of this helps. Here is a brief description of the content of the Pure units.

C2:
Factor, remainder theorm
Algebraic Division
Definite intergration
Coordinate Geometry and Further Differenciation
Trigonometry
Geometric Series
C3:
More Differenciation: Product,Quotient,Chain rule
Trigonemetric manipulation: Double angles, Half angles, reciprocol functions
Mappings and Functions
C4:
Implicit Differenciation
Parametric equations
Further Integration: Substitution, Recognation, Integration by parts
Partial Fractions
Vectors
FP1:
Matricies
Proof by induction
Series
Basic conics
Numerical Techniques
Complex Numbers
Fp2:
Further Complex numbers: Loci,De Movrie, Roots of Unity etc
1st Order Differencial Equations
2nd Order Differncial Equations
Polars
Further Series
Roots
Taylor expansions

Reply 4

Anita B. Studin

FML - Further Maths Love

I love it! So glad I took it up as I decided a month into year 12 to swap Chemistry for FM. Its not too hard but you have to work hard obviously.

Reply 5

illusionz

It's fine until you get to FP2/FP3 when it becomes hard. I found it a lot harder than chemistry/physics and I got around 95% in normal maths so I'm not exactly bad at it.

It was my lowest A level by about 10%

Reply 6

Marsha2112

It's fine...I actually found C1-4, S1 and M1 required more work than this year, because now I'm used to the style of maths (repetitive and "method" based) the FP1-3 and applied modules are pretty do-able tbh. There isn't really any step up in difficulty from normal to further, relative to your ability at the time.
It's not "insanely difficult" like some would make out, if you're a maths person then History's more of a challenge x

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 7

nikita_atikin

Original post by Anita B. Studin

FML - Further Maths Love

I love it! So glad I took it up as I decided a month into year 12 to swap Chemistry for FM. Its not too hard but you have to work hard obviously.

The FML abbreviation is apt :tongue:

Yeah further maths can make you feel like FML (f my life) most of the time but it most definitely makes you feel like FML (further maths love) by the end of it.

It's a very good qualification to have even if you do badly in it! Some universities do consider a low grade in it at AS (my friend got an offer like that).

If you're considering a mathematical/economics/computer science/engineering career, I'd say it's a must. Stay on top of your work and you'll do fine :smile: