The Student Room Group

Further Maths Self Teach...

Hi All.
If you have looked at my past threads you'll notice that im being a bit pedantic when it comes to A Levels haha. Quit 1st year uni to try and do A Levels again, obtain better grades and (hopefully) get into a top uni.

So... having talked to admissions at my target uni, they advised that it would be preferable if I had AS Further Maths when I applied. Obviously, wanting the best application possible, I am prepared to do this. (Already chosen Econ and Maths at college / 1 year A Level course). Need a third full A Level as well (different thread)

1. Which exam board do you recommend if im going to self teach it?
2. Should I do the AS during the summer exam season?

Thanks for your help!
Reply 1
Original post by Onlyheretoask
Hi All.
If you have looked at my past threads you'll notice that im being a bit pedantic when it comes to A Levels haha. Quit 1st year uni to try and do A Levels again, obtain better grades and (hopefully) get into a top uni.

So... having talked to admissions at my target uni, they advised that it would be preferable if I had AS Further Maths when I applied. Obviously, wanting the best application possible, I am prepared to do this. (Already chosen Econ and Maths at college / 1 year A Level course). Need a third full A Level as well (different thread)

1. Which exam board do you recommend if im going to self teach it?
2. Should I do the AS during the summer exam season?

Thanks for your help!


I'm coming to the end of A levels, and I've self taught Further Maths, along with quite a bit of normal Maths. I do CCEA, so when it comes to exam boards I can't really give much advice! They are pretty good, but unless you live in N. Ireland, not much use to you. I would imagine AQA or EDEXCEL have the most entries and most support materials though.
How do you mean, the summer exam season? As far as I'm aware, all exam boards have got rid of winter modules, so all exams have to be sat in the summer.
Original post by Actaeon
I'm coming to the end of A levels, and I've self taught Further Maths, along with quite a bit of normal Maths. I do CCEA, so when it comes to exam boards I can't really give much advice! They are pretty good, but unless you live in N. Ireland, not much use to you. I would imagine AQA or EDEXCEL have the most entries and most support materials though.


Thanks for the info! Think I might go for CCEA too. How did you find the content? Im going into this blind so apologies for the vague questions
Reply 3
Original post by Onlyheretoask
Thanks for the info! Think I might go for CCEA too. How did you find the content? Im going into this blind so apologies for the vague questions


I found the content for AS to be not too bad (though A2 I found considerably harder). What modules you study will depend on what modules you're taking for ordinary A-level maths - I did Further Pure 1,2 and Stats 1.

Further Pure 1 and 2 are nice, I enjoyed them. There's a broad range of different content, which is all interesting (matrices, complex numbers, induction, trig and so on). I think stats is a lot more difficult to understand at first though, I had to spend quite a bit more time on it than the other modules.

I have a load of resources for CCEA Further Maths modules, if you know which ones you might be doing. :smile:
Original post by Onlyheretoask
Thanks for the info! Think I might go for CCEA too. How did you find the content? Im going into this blind so apologies for the vague questions

I'm actually from Northern Ireland too, and doing my normal Maths A Level with CCEA, but I am also teaching myself FM form EDEXCEL and sitting their exams, as they have by FAR the most resources/ support. They have textbooks, online resources, people on YouTube and ExamSolutions who cover the majority of the FM Course, depending on what modules you take~ CCEA don't have any textbooks and it's very hard to follow by a textbook as the modules' are completely different to EDEXCEL, plus EDEXCEL definitely prepares you better for University level Mathematics with any Subject, which is something all of my teachers say, since we have only recently switched to CCEA for Maths A Level.
Original post by Actaeon
I found the content for AS to be not too bad (though A2 I found considerably harder). What modules you study will depend on what modules you're taking for ordinary A-level maths - I did Further Pure 1,2 and Stats 1.

Further Pure 1 and 2 are nice, I enjoyed them. There's a broad range of different content, which is all interesting (matrices, complex numbers, induction, trig and so on). I think stats is a lot more difficult to understand at first though, I had to spend quite a bit more time on it than the other modules.

I have a load of resources for CCEA Further Maths modules, if you know which ones you might be doing. :smile:


Thanks for the help man! Im thinking that i might just do the AS - FM as thats all admissions specified. 3 A/A* grades and FM AS would suffice. Only difficulty now is trying to choose an exam board.

Original post by Jordan\
I'm actually from Northern Ireland too, and doing my normal Maths A Level with CCEA, but I am also teaching myself FM form EDEXCEL and sitting their exams, as they have by FAR the most resources/ support. They have textbooks, online resources, people on YouTube and ExamSolutions who cover the majority of the FM Course, depending on what modules you take~ CCEA don't have any textbooks and it's very hard to follow by a textbook as the modules' are completely different to EDEXCEL, plus EDEXCEL definitely prepares you better for University level Mathematics with any Subject, which is something all of my teachers say, since we have only recently switched to CCEA for Maths A Level.


So you would recommend Edexcel for the AS FM? As its self taught, additional resources are going to play a big part.
Original post by Onlyheretoask

So you would recommend Edexcel for the AS FM? As its self taught, additional resources are going to play a big part.

I would definitely recommend EDEXCEL for the AS! The resources are brilliant, and you will almost always have people to turn to on here if your having trouble with something as there are an abundance of people who do FM on here. Definitely choose the modules, and buy the EDEXCEL textbooks, make your own notes from them, do the exercises and then move to Past Papers. What modules did you do for normal Maths/ what ones are you thinking of doing?



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Reply 7
I'm currently doing Edexcel maths/further maths and I've done C1, C2, S1, M1, FP1 and got D1 next week. D1 is probably the easiest to self-teach, it's not as hard as the others. It's not even maths. Even if you're doing OCR there isn't much of a difference, apart from S1.

ukmathsteacher is also someone you may wanna watch on youtube, he has youtube videos on all of D1 and FP1 (maybe other modules as well). Plenty of other youtube maths videos are well which are helpful.

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