The Student Room Group

How to get an A in AS Maths

Any advice from those who got an A in AS Maths and how you did it?
Revision techniques?
General advice for the course?
Past papers
Get LiveMaths. Practice Past Papers. Repeat till you can get 80%+ on average. Don't rely on your teacher too much unless you know for a fact that they're good at teaching that specific module.
I did edexcel maths last year (i'm in year 13 now and carrying it on for A2).
I got an A overall:
93 UMS for C1
96 UMS for C2
61 UMS for S1 (I hated it and didn't revise for it, but don't do what I did)

Make sure you pay attention in class and understand the new concepts and ideas which are being taught to you. Make sure you have a strong algebraic understanding.

PRACTISE PAST PAPERS - This is what is going to get you your A. I did all the past papers from the last 5-10 years at least twice each. Maths questions are somewhat repetitive, so once you understand the topic and practise all the questions from past papers on that topic, you are good to go.

I used ExamSolutions a lot too, I found the website very usefull.

Best of luck, PM me if you have any more questions or need any help with C1 or C2 during the year :biggrin:
Reply 4
I also used ExamSolutions which is great.

PRACTISE (and again, and again...!). The only way I got the grade I wanted was to do loads of questions out the textbook, with full working to get used to the method. The more practise, the faster and better you get. Then do all the past papers (yep, all of them!).

Just keep doing papers and questions, and keep working. It's dull but it works out in the end!

Good Luck :smile:
Reply 5
Original post by Thahleel
Get LiveMaths. Practice Past Papers. Repeat till you can get 80%+ on average. Don't rely on your teacher too much unless you know for a fact that they're good at teaching that specific module.


Hello Thahleel,

I was just wondering if Live maths was worth buying. I currently need some means of self teaching my further maths A2.

Thanks
Original post by _bindra
Hello Thahleel,

I was just wondering if Live maths was worth buying. I currently need some means of self teaching my further maths A2.

Thanks


Most definitely worth buying, I personally think teachers around the country should fund this, they show you how to answer every question in recent past papers for the popular modules for each exam board (Got a lot of solutions for MEI if you're planning on doing that)

Generally classroom maths is done like this, you're introduced the concept, you revise it, and answer questions about it, this helps you with two of the above, it's doing the teachers job for them in most respects. The testimonials speak for themselves, but don't think that buying this will get you a good grade for A2 FM, you're gonna have to work your socks off for that either way. This just helps you, makes your life easier when there's something you can't do.

This is what the Further Maths Support Programme should offer, however they tend to offer annual lectures and revision videos instead.

I don't think buying it for 1 month is worth doing, if you're going to buy this, make sure it's the entire year, extremely good value for money like that. You will probably gain the knowledge of hundreds of hours of tuition from this, that kind of tuition would cost thousands of pounds when this just costs £90.

I don't work for LiveMaths, I'm just going off of personal experience. The support for maths at my school was pretty limited, with only one of my 3 teachers willing to help with questions, this helped fill the gap.
Reply 7
Original post by Thahleel
Most definitely worth buying, I personally think teachers around the country should fund this, they show you how to answer every question in recent past papers for the popular modules for each exam board (Got a lot of solutions for MEI if you're planning on doing that)

Generally classroom maths is done like this, you're introduced the concept, you revise it, and answer questions about it, this helps you with two of the above, it's doing the teachers job for them in most respects. The testimonials speak for themselves, but don't think that buying this will get you a good grade for A2 FM, you're gonna have to work your socks off for that either way. This just helps you, makes your life easier when there's something you can't do.

This is what the Further Maths Support Programme should offer, however they tend to offer annual lectures and revision videos instead.

I don't think buying it for 1 month is worth doing, if you're going to buy this, make sure it's the entire year, extremely good value for money like that. You will probably gain the knowledge of hundreds of hours of tuition from this, that kind of tuition would cost thousands of pounds when this just costs £90.

I don't work for LiveMaths, I'm just going off of personal experience. The support for maths at my school was pretty limited, with only one of my 3 teachers willing to help with questions, this helped fill the gap.


Brilliant! Thanks a lot for the advice
Past papers with their mark schemes are pretty damn good. Just understand all the possible questions they could ask you... the questions are similar each year in ways. I didn't really use my teachers at all to be honest, just past papers and the textbooks.
Reply 9
Save the past papers until you are ready to do them under exam conditions (without revision notes/text books) .

Quick Reply

Latest