P3 distaster; urgent help needed

Hi all, nice forum.

For the last ten days I've been frantically revising P3, (exam on the 9th June). I got the Heinemann P3 book out of the library, and literally the last ten days have been the most boring days of my life; working non stop to teach myself the entire content of the book.

Most of the stuff in there seemed rather unfamiliar, but I put this down to the fact that my attendence in lessons hasn't been great, so I probably missed the lessons where we covered the P3 topics. However... I've just realised that the book I've been revising from is the 1996 version; ie the version that was produced when there were 4 pure modules (p1-4) rather than 6. Therefore I suspect that most of the stuff I've been teaching myself is completely irrelevent to the exam I'm going to be taking in 5 days time.

I've been searching the net trying to find somewhere that will give me
a) a list of topics in the P3 exam
b) notes, practice questions (+answers if poss) and other learning material

so that with the help of a large amount of coffee I can learn everything I need to by the 9th. Any searches I do on the internet just come up with loads of links to sites telling me to buy revision books online etc etc, not really an option given the time available.

Yes, I know I've been incredibly stupid, and I don't deserve to pass my exam at all, but if anyone does know anywhere on the internet that has comprehensive p3 notes, I would be eternally grateful. Thanks in advance.

Reply 1

m:)ckel

14

a_r

Hi all, nice forum.

For the last ten days I've been frantically revising P3, (exam on the 9th June). I got the Heinemann P3 book out of the library, and literally the last ten days have been the most boring days of my life; working non stop to teach myself the entire content of the book.

Most of the stuff in there seemed rather unfamiliar, but I put this down to the fact that my attendence in lessons hasn't been great, so I probably missed the lessons where we covered the P3 topics. However... I've just realised that the book I've been revising from is the 1996 version; ie the version that was produced when there were 4 pure modules (p1-4) rather than 6. Therefore I suspect that most of the stuff I've been teaching myself is completely irrelevent to the exam I'm going to be taking in 5 days time.

I've been searching the net trying to find somewhere that will give me
a) a list of topics in the P3 exam
b) notes, practice questions (+answers if poss) and other learning material

so that with the help of a large amount of coffee I can learn everything I need to by the 9th. Any searches I do on the internet just come up with loads of links to sites telling me to buy revision books online etc etc, not really an option given the time available.

Yes, I know I've been incredibly stupid, and I don't deserve to pass my exam at all, but if anyone does know anywhere on the internet that has comprehensive p3 notes, I would be eternally grateful. Thanks in advance.

This is quite good: http://www.ajimal.com/mathematics/alevel/main.htm

Edit: this is even better (scroll down, and click on the Revision Document at the bottom): http://www.ajimal.com/mathematics/alevel/p3revision.htm

Reply 2

wibble...

what board are you on? (its just that different boards have different a syllabus)

Reply 3

Bhaal85

9

Hahaha, you ain't got no chance in cracking P3 unless you spend at least 6 hours per day going through it. It's not memory work, it's about application, you have to be able to solve different problems, and its not like GCSE where everything is the same, it's the hardest module.

If you get any problems, just post them here, also try doing a search here to find useful topics.

Reply 4

a_r

OP

Cheers for the sympathetic response, Bhaal85!

I'm a fairly quick learner, and I reckon if I can find the material I'll be able to have a decent go at the exam.

Its Edexcel, by the way

Reply 5

a_r

OP

Mockel,

Brilliant; thanks a lot

Reply 6

++Hex++

8

Calm down a bit - whatever the actual situation, it'll help. First, it's more likely that you've been learning material ahead of what you need to know, ie. 1/4 of the course rather than a sixth.
The main problems I had with P3 were with differentiation/integration, and the different methods that you can use to tackle different sorts of problems. There's also a fair bit on vectors.
It would be useful if you could post a bit about what you have been learning, cos then we can see what to add to it.

I don't know straight off any comprehensive P3 syllabus notes, but there are a couple of sites I remember finding useful that I'll look up in a minute.

Reply 7

Bhaal85

9

a_r

Cheers for the sympathetic response, Bhaal85!

I'm a fairly quick learner, and I reckon if I can find the material I'll be able to have a decent go at the exam.

Its Edexcel, by the way

Sorry dude, but P3 requires a shit load of effort. Like I said, if you get stuck on any questions, just post them here, and we shall help you. Apart from that all I can say is learn your trig identites, etc. Here this site may help:

http://www.ajimal.com/mathematics/alevel/main.htm

Reply 8

Leekey

9

Bhaal85

Hahaha, you ain't got no chance in cracking P3 unless you spend at least 6 hours per day going through it. It's not memory work, it's about application, you have to be able to solve different problems, and its not like GCSE where everything is the same, it's the hardest module.

If you get any problems, just post them here, also try doing a search here to find useful topics.

Agree completely!!!

The thigs that they (Edexcel) seem to like testing are...

- Co-ordinate geometry of the the circle
- Binomial expansion
- Differentiation (chain rule, quotient rule, logarithms)
- Integration (parts, substitution, inspection)
- Factor theorem
- Parametrics

Reply 9

m:)ckel

14

a_r

Mockel,

Brilliant; thanks a lot

np

but you're gonna have to work really really hard.....past papers can be found here: http://www.mrhughes.net/Maths/Hidden%20Pages/login.htm
username: alevel
password: mrhughes

and solutions can be found at the same site i gave you earlier....here's the link: http://www.ajimal.com/download/alevel/main.htm

good luck :smile:

Reply 10

ResidentEvil

1

a_r

Hi all, nice forum.

For the last ten days I've been frantically revising P3, (exam on the 9th June). I got the Heinemann P3 book out of the library, and literally the last ten days have been the most boring days of my life; working non stop to teach myself the entire content of the book.

Most of the stuff in there seemed rather unfamiliar, but I put this down to the fact that my attendence in lessons hasn't been great, so I probably missed the lessons where we covered the P3 topics. However... I've just realised that the book I've been revising from is the 1996 version; ie the version that was produced when there were 4 pure modules (p1-4) rather than 6. Therefore I suspect that most of the stuff I've been teaching myself is completely irrelevent to the exam I'm going to be taking in 5 days time.

I've been searching the net trying to find somewhere that will give me
a) a list of topics in the P3 exam
b) notes, practice questions (+answers if poss) and other learning material

so that with the help of a large amount of coffee I can learn everything I need to by the 9th. Any searches I do on the internet just come up with loads of links to sites telling me to buy revision books online etc etc, not really an option given the time available.

Yes, I know I've been incredibly stupid, and I don't deserve to pass my exam at all, but if anyone does know anywhere on the internet that has comprehensive p3 notes, I would be eternally grateful. Thanks in advance.

well, its never a disadvantage to go beyond the normal level (in this case P3).
However, I wanna ask: "WHY THE HELL DID YOU GOTO THE LIBRARY TO GET A P3 TEXTBOOK, WHEN YOU SHOULD ALREADY HAVE ONE FROM SCHOOL?" The school should supply you with the new P3 edition textbook, and all the relevant content is IN that book. If the school didnt give u a textbook, I cannot see how its possible to even study maths?

Anyway, try:
http://www.mathsnet.net/asa2/modules/p3.html
It is very well summarised with questions too.

P3 is a bit of a 'LOAD' but just get the main ideas running in your head, and YOU MUST DO PRACTISE PAPERS:
http://www.mrhughes.net/Maths/Hidden%20Pages/login.htm
Login: alevel
Password: mrhughes

Reply 11

a_r

OP

Well, I've had loads of fun (as you can imagine) learning Osborn's rule; 'In a trigonometric identity you can replace each trigonometric function by the correspionding hyperbolic function to form the corresponding hyperbolic identity but you must also change the sign of every product (or implied product) of two sines'

I now know by heart loads of hyperbolic functions and identities, and their applications (much good that'll do me!)

Having now had a brief look at some of the stuff in those links you provided, I'd say I've actually covered about half of it in my revision thus far. I'm going to go away and try to nail the rest of it now; thanks very much for your help, and, if I have any specific problems with the new material I'll post it here.

A million thanks,

a_r

Reply 12

++Hex++

8

http://www.mathsnet.net/asa2/modules/p3.html
is the site I used most, in addition to past papers/textbook. There are quite a few sample questions for each section/topic.

EDIT: just noticed this has already been posted... :rolleyes:

Reply 13

++Hex++

8

a_r

Well, I've had loads of fun (as you can imagine) learning Osborn's rule; 'In a trigonometric identity you can replace each trigonometric function by the correspionding hyperbolic function to form the corresponding hyperbolic identity but you must also change the sign of every product (or implied product) of two sines'

I now know by heart loads of hyperbolic functions and identities, and their applications (much good that'll do me!)

Having now had a brief look at some of the stuff in those links you provided, I'd say I've actually covered about half of it in my revision thus far. I'm going to go away and try to nail the rest of it now; thanks very much for your help, and, if I have any specific problems with the new material I'll post it here.

A million thanks,

a_r

You don't have to know about hyperbolic functions until P5!

Reply 14

fishpaste

a_r

Well, I've had loads of fun (as you can imagine) learning Osborn's rule; 'In a trigonometric identity you can replace each trigonometric function by the correspionding hyperbolic function to form the corresponding hyperbolic identity but you must also change the sign of every product (or implied product) of two sines'

I now know by heart loads of hyperbolic functions and identities, and their applications (much good that'll do me!)

Having now had a brief look at some of the stuff in those links you provided, I'd say I've actually covered about half of it in my revision thus far. I'm going to go away and try to nail the rest of it now; thanks very much for your help, and, if I have any specific problems with the new material I'll post it here.

A million thanks,

a_r

Ahahahahaha. You poor thing! Why don't you sit P4/P5 so it doesn't goto waste eh? :P

Reply 15

Whywhywhy

Got to www.edexcel.org.uk and find the maths GCE syllabus. That lists what you need to know for each module.

Reply 16

shift3

I'm kinda in the same situation. I never went to any of my P3 classes in school, cause the teacher was a moron, and I never did any work during this year. So when I finally realised that the exam was getting close (that was last week, after my M3 exam) I decided to start learning the damn thing. I finished the book in 6 days, and did 85% of the questions it had -- the helpful people in this forum helped me whenever I got stuck on one. :biggrin:

It wasn't an easy task, but I managed to survive. Just have faith in yourself and work, work, work!

Now, I feel really confident about P3. I have a basic understanding of everything I need to know, and I've been really successful doing past papers. Make sure you do past papers, I can't stress this enough. You learn a lot of new stuff, but most importantly, you learn the board's style. That is vital to achieving a good grade. Anyway, I got it easier than you I suppose, as I didn't jump into the P4-P6 specification. :tongue:

But that does have its benifits: it'll give you a stronger PMath background, and make P3 hopefully seem a little less complicated.

Good luck!

Reply 17

a_r

OP

7 hours and 12 cups of coffee later...
I think its going to be 'do-able'. Compared to the stuff I've been trying to learn over the last few days, this new stuff actually seems easy!

Bhaal85 (and other non-believers), I work better under pressure, (and this is certainly going to be a lot of pressure- 4 days and counting till the exam). I got bored of the maths classes at college because of the slow pace, so I stopped going to them (apart from a notional appearance every now and then). That's why I didn't realise that I had never actually 'learned' what I was revising.

ResidentEvil

WHY THE HELL DID YOU GOTO THE LIBRARY TO GET A P3 TEXTBOOK, WHEN YOU SHOULD ALREADY HAVE ONE FROM SCHOOL?" The school should supply you with the new P3 edition textbook, and all the relevant content is IN that book. If the school didnt give u a textbook, I cannot see how its possible to even study maths?

I left college after my lower-sixth, and joined a different college (don't ask...) and every-one at the new college had allready been issued with the textbooks. I missed the first few lessons, so by the time I finally surfaced the teacher just assumed that I had the books. Since then, I havn't been to many of the lessons, so the I suppose the teacher never realised that I didn't have any of the learning resources. It all would have been OK if only the library (public library, not college library) had up to date books... Still, I've got no-one to blame but myself. If I had spent rather more time studying and visiting sites like UKLearning, rather than sites like this, perhaps I wouldn't be in this mess...

Anyway, thanks a lot for your help, everyone. I've printed off loads of notes and exercises, and, with an almost infinate supply of coffee at my disposal, I should have enough time to sort it out. Also, p3 is pretty much the only exam I have to revise for (the others are almost in the bag) so I'm probably in a better position than people having to cram in revision for three or four entire subjects.

Thanks again,
a_r

Reply 18

a_r

OP

Night night - that's quite enough maths for one night/(morning?)

Reply 19

kikzen

14

Leekey

Agree completely!!!

The thigs that they (Edexcel) seem to like testing are...

- Co-ordinate geometry of the the circle
- Binomial expansion
- Differentiation (chain rule, quotient rule, logarithms)
- Integration (parts, substitution, inspection)
- Factor theorem
- Parametrics

so pretty much the entire syllabus then eh :tongue:

P3 distaster; urgent help needed

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you