Why is FP3 (Edexcel) so damn boring??

Seriously! It's the worst module of all the pure ones. And that integration stuff just feel so useless, except the arc length and surface area of course. Oh and those damn hyperbolic functions, I have yet to see them used somewhere other than this module. Wouldn't it have been more useful to put a chapter about limits instead?

Oh and don't even get me started on the linear algebra, I have never been so bored in my life; and the thing is, they put ZERO applications in the book so we are basically just doing brainless calculator work with no insight to what it's all about.

The only good parts (which also got boring after a while) were the arc length and surface area parts, and they don't even come up that much in the exam since you can rarely get an elementary integral out of them!

Please somebody help me out of this miserable book...

MEI is better - we get to do group theory and Markov chains!

MEI is better - we get to do group theory and Markov chains!

Seriously! It's the worst module of all the pure ones. And that integration stuff just feel so useless, except the arc length and surface area of course. Oh and those damn hyperbolic functions, I have yet to see them used somewhere other than this module. Wouldn't it have been more useful to put a chapter about limits instead?

Oh and don't even get me started on the linear algebra, I have never been so bored in my life; and the thing is, they put ZERO applications in the book so we are basically just doing brainless calculator work with no insight to what it's all about.

The only good parts (which also got boring after a while) were the arc length and surface area parts, and they don't even come up that much in the exam since you can rarely get an elementary integral out of them!

Please somebody help me out of this miserable book...

NO WAY!! What the hell is wrong with Edexcel?

Seriously! It's the worst module of all the pure ones. And that integration stuff just feel so useless, except the arc length and surface area of course. Oh and those damn hyperbolic functions, I have yet to see them used somewhere other than this module. Wouldn't it have been more useful to put a chapter about limits instead?

Oh and don't even get me started on the linear algebra, I have never been so bored in my life; and the thing is, they put ZERO applications in the book so we are basically just doing brainless calculator work with no insight to what it's all about.

The only good parts (which also got boring after a while) were the arc length and surface area parts, and they don't even come up that much in the exam since you can rarely get an elementary integral out of them!

Please somebody help me out of this miserable book...

I don't know - seems very odd how different MEI is. We get to choose three from differential geometry, multivariable calculus, vectors (bread and butter Edexcel also I'm assuming?) and then the groups/sets and the Markov chains.

It's a shame that Edexcel seems to be so useless when it comes to further pure.

I agree with you about the Matrices; it's all memorising methods, with no indication of where these concepts came from, but I think the everything else is worthwhile to study. Sure learning about the basics of hyperbolic functions and doing drills on differentiation aren't exactly interesting or fun, but they give you another tool to use when solving more difficult and interesting problems.

Hyperbolics are an interesting topic understanding where they come from essentially replace e^ix to e^x and removing the i from the bottom of sin to make them both real and hyperbolics can be used to solve some nice equations and the proofs for finding the inverses of hyperbolics are really interesting.

You are probably about to be thrown off this site for saying something like that as integration is so exciting and is at a high level than C4.The matrice stuff is interesting when you are finding values for which a matrice behaves like a number.Arc length and surface area of revolution is quite good I like Arc length though because the proof is very simple.

I learned how to derive the formulae for arc length and surface area long time ago. I love integration, it's one of the most beautiful mathematical operations I have encountered; but I want to learn more, not stay stuck on the same boring integration that people don't actually do anymore. You just put it in Mathematica and BAMN you just integrated that complicated function. I mean integrating functions can be fun, but after a point, it just seems like you're not doing anything of real value, especially when there is no problem solved or new discovery from the integration.

I learned how to derive the formulae for arc length and surface area long time ago. I love integration, it's one of the most beautiful mathematical operations I have encountered; but I want to learn more, not stay stuck on the same boring integration that people don't actually do anymore. You just put it in Mathematica and BAMN you just integrated that complicated function. I mean integrating functions can be fun, but after a point, it just seems like you're not doing anything of real value, especially when there is no problem solved or new discovery from the integration.

I never did FP3, but I've just read the specification and it doesn't look too bad tbh.

I think the hyperbolic functions, matrices, and vectors parts are the most useful/important parts. But tbh I think FP2 is better in terms of what you learn.

I wish I did FP3 instead of M3!!



You have to do these integrals by hand in exams at uni level maths as well though, you can't just stick them into wolfram alpha!

Solving difficult integrals isn't valuable to mathematics in the sense that it won't (read: almost always) lead to a great discovery, but they are interesting problems in their own right. Being able to solve integrals manually can also be helpful because there are some integrals that have solutions in terms of elementary functions that mathematica cannot solve.

Realistically, what can you expect from a module that is part of a qualification meant to encompass the necessary tools for a whole raft of degrees - Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, etc. I'm not sure I understand your last point - at this level the applicability of a concept to research mathematics is not important.

I learned how to derive the formulae for arc length and surface area long time ago. I love integration, it's one of the most beautiful mathematical operations I have encountered; but I want to learn more, not stay stuck on the same boring integration that people don't actually do anymore. You just put it in Mathematica and BAMN you just integrated that complicated function. I mean integrating functions can be fun, but after a point, it just seems like you're not doing anything of real value, especially when there is no problem solved or new discovery from the integration.

Its cheating putting it in Mathematica and there are several new style questions and substitutions to make if you are not happy use your FP3 and C4 knowledge to integrate some STEP problemsYou can get exciting integrals like integral 1/(x^3-1) that you have to keep breaking down.You could say what you are saying about every element of the A Level syllabus as it is all repetitive to a point.FP3 is much more interesting than D1(so boring),M3(pretty boring and very hard) and C4(I'm doing vectors now) so of course I am going to love FP3 I much prefer the pure topics I like mathematical beauty I do like Statistics as well though then Mechanics and then I despise Decision(I think I have liked Game Theory so far(D2) but I hated having to use Simplex at the end of the chapter).

What's wrong with M3?

Also I'd like to think they would be testing us on what we're learning in class, like multivariable calculus and more advanced real and complex analysis rather than this complicated integral that gets us nowhere. Plus when you look at the exercises sections in real books, for the more advanced parts, you never see complicated functions, you maybe start with complicated multivariable function and you have to make a clever change of variables to integrate it easily; not just repeat the same technique again and again.

FP3 for AQA just maclaurin series, polar and differential equations. Not that exciting but can be fun

I personally found M3 to be really difficult! M1 and M2 are pretty good though, but I think I struggled with the basics in M3 and then it went downhill from there.

Yeah they do test you on what you learn in class, but they sometimes give harder questions (which can include harder integrals) to separate the boys from the men.