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Edexcel S3 Self - teaching advice.

Hi all.

I am taking lots of maths modules. And with exam solutions augmenting my learning, it has helped a lot. Also D1 is fine to do independently.

However with S3, I am having difficulty atm in teaching myself the work.

I have got the edexcel book, but I feel that the questions it asks have no relevance to their worked examples. The sampling chapter is fine, it is everything else with it.

For those that got 90 UMS + in S3 what did you do, what resources did use.

Kind Regards.
Reply 1
I haven't taken the exam officially but I did sufficiently well in last year's paper (a mock under exam conditions).
Personally I find sampling is the only annoying part, each to their own I guess
Although there is a lot of recipe-style hypothesis testing stuff going on, like at the end of S2, I find that in order to be confident with the questions in S3 it's best to try and cultivate a proper understanding of the material. The worked examples may seem different to the questions but they are really only testing the same things, just generally disguised with more words. And don't forget the mass of assumed knowledge which is expected; you still have to be very fluent with all the different distribution models. It is possible that the questions are asking for application of knowledge which is not used in the examples but you should still have. I have only used the Edexcel book and past papers.
Could you possibly give a particular example of where you feel that the questions are like this? I only really experienced such issues with Chapter 4.
Original post by 1 8 13 20 42
I haven't taken the exam officially but I did sufficiently well in last year's paper (a mock under exam conditions).
Personally I find sampling is the only annoying part, each to their own I guess
Although there is a lot of recipe-style hypothesis testing stuff going on, like at the end of S2, I find that in order to be confident with the questions in S3 it's best to try and cultivate a proper understanding of the material. The worked examples may seem different to the questions but they are really only testing the same things, just generally disguised with more words. And don't forget the mass of assumed knowledge which is expected; you still have to be very fluent with all the different distribution models. It is possible that the questions are asking for application of knowledge which is not used in the examples but you should still have. I have only used the Edexcel book and past papers.
Could you possibly give a particular example of where you feel that the questions are like this? I only really experienced such issues with Chapter 4.


Thanks for the reply, repped.

i.e. Chapter 1, it starts off with E(X) and Var(X) from S1, then goes in more depth but the questions

https://771a1ec81340d97ae9ed29694f73dd633b1c7c70.googledrive.com/host/0B1ZiqBksUHNYV1BTbDkxWXZCVmc/CH1.pdf

Questions like that such of Exercise A Question 11.

So you only use the book and past papers, I have tried to find online resources to help but have not found much.
Original post by Damien_Dalgaard

I have got the edexcel book, but I feel that the questions it asks have no relevance to their worked examples. The sampling chapter is fine, it is everything else with it.

I feel the exact opposite.:eek:
Reply 4
Does anyone know if there are any PDF versions of the textbook? I really don't understand s3 and my school doesn't have text books :frown:
Original post by Phoebexxx
Does anyone know if there are any PDF versions of the textbook? I really don't understand s3 and my school doesn't have text books :frown:



Use this site.

http://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/a-level-maths-papers/

And click S3, solutionbank.

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