Teaching yourself pure mathematics

Bostock and Chandler are brilliant books to cover the Pure content of the A level and FM syllabi, but they do assume that you have covered things like algebra and trigonometry (the level taught at GCSE should be sufficient for this, although even the best GCSE students seem to forget these topics over the summer after their GCSE exams which is the biggest challenge when they come to do A Level!).

As I said earlier, don't try to jump ahead yet. Have a look at some GCSE papers and make sure that you are comfortable with the topics examined. Once you're confident in answering questions at that level, then you can start on B&C

Do you know any textbooks that follow the old O level content? I heard that the IGCSE mathematics textbooks do this, is that true?

Also, what content was covered before the O levels - was it just arithmetic?

If you want a GCSE course in smallish chunks with exams for each stage you could try these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/278-9530322-0096559?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=ocr%20gcse%20maths%20graduated%20assessment

The course goes from absolute basics to A*.


If you prefer one or two books that cover GCSE maths I think these are quite good.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intermediate-GCSE-Mathematics-Revision-Practice/dp/0199147892/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414048945&sr=1-12&keywords=gcse+maths+rayner

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Higher-GCSE-Mathematics-Revision-Practice/dp/0199147914/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414048998&sr=1-10&keywords=gcse+maths+rayner

Do you know any textbooks that follow the old O level content? I heard that the IGCSE mathematics textbooks do this, is that true?

Also, what content was covered before the O levels - was it just arithmetic?

IGCSE CIE Maths is the most similar to O levels I believe.

However, don't be fooled by CIE's IGCSE Additional Maths. I did this, and found out it was actually almost equivalent in level to AS-level maths.

So I'll do IGCSE -> AS/A-Levels using Bostock/Chandler.

However I noticed that the IGCSE mathematics textbook assumes some knowledge as well...what textbook should I use to cover that assumed knowledge? In other words, what comes before the IGCSE? (And, what came before the old UK system's O-levels?)

Like yourself I'm not a recent student, but the school curriculum pre-GCSE is divided into a number of "Key Stages" - KS1, KS2 etc (I think it stops at KS4 before GCSEs but I'm an O level sort of person so I don't understand all this modern nonsense!)

Anyway, head down to your local WHSmith (or other well-known bookstore), locate the academic books, and browse through some of the Key Stage books. Identify whichever one doesn't seem to assume more than you already know, then start from there and work upwards!

Do you think I should start with a basic arithmetic textbook, then move on to an IGCSE textbook, followed by Bostock/Chandler? Should I be prepared for first year university mathematics after doing all of that?

Do you have any recommendations for a basic arithmetic textbook?

I don't, I'm afraid - it's so long since I last studied it!

Before you buy anything it might be worth a trip to your local library just to check out things like adult numeracy textbooks to see if the material looks familiar to you. Without knowing you personally or how quickly you pick things up it's very difficult to give specific recommendations on books or how fast to take things!

Out of interest, what sort of degree course are you doing? If they require Further Maths level of knowledge I'm surprised they don't ask for some form of exam certificate to prove it.

I'm unsure if this is the right place to be asking this question but I will try! As some of you may know from my other thread, I am learning mathematics from the ground up.

I found a website called "www.glad2teach.co.uk" and it says that I can purchase 30 videos that go through fast arithmetic and 26 videos that go through fast algebra. But is the website legitimate?

This does not seem at all legit to me.

Have you asked in the maths forum? There are loads of people there who can recommend learning tools for you, and also help you with any problems you get stuck with.

A-Level Maths. Everything that you need to fill the gap is in there.

As for books (I understand that you are looking for rigourous, yet comprehensive materials), you need to get two different kinds. You will need the A-Level books that are released by the examining board you go with without a doubt. These books are full of questions of varying difficulty, and adhere exactly to the current specification which will give you an idea of what to expect on the exam papers. However, these books are quite bad at actually explaining to you how Mathematics works - for this, you need a more old-fashioned set of textbooks. My recommendation is Pure Mathematics 1 and 2 by Backhouse and Houldsworth. These books are brilliant at teaching you the subject in a plain, but thoughtful fashion and contain some questions that are much harder than those on today's papers. Because of their age, they don't quite cover everything in the modern syllabus - perhaps 90% of it, which is why you need a combination of the two

I used this combination of books and received AA in Maths and Further Maths this year, all done in one year, and this combination of books really helped me along.

It is great to hear that you succeeded by using older textbooks. I'm starting from the absolute basics so if I were to start with basic arithmetic (addition, subtracting, multiplying, division, fractions, decimals, etc), would I be able to move on to GCSE/IGCSE content, and do the AS/A-Levels after that?

Do you have any old mathematics textbook recommendations for arithmetic or GCSE/IGCSE (or O levels as it was back in the day)?

Also, what do you think about Bostock/Chandler for AS/A-Levels? I'm more familiar with the authors' names.

I'm unsure if this is the right place to be asking this question but I will try! As some of you may know from my other thread, I am learning mathematics from the ground up.

I found a website called "www.glad2teach.co.uk" and it says that I can purchase 30 videos that go through fast arithmetic and 26 videos that go through fast algebra. But is the website legitimate?

@OP Have you tried this site?
http://examsolutions.net/

I'll take a look at it but I do prefer textbooks