The Student Room Group

M2 or S3?

I am currently doing Maths and Further Maths at Year 13 but I don't do physics? I am considering swapping M2 for S3 because I have no interest in doing anything later on that might require knowledge of Mechanics. I fear I might struggle in M2 without doing physics. So, just a couple of questions for people who may have experience:

Is M2 extremely difficult without that much knowledge of Physics?

Is S3 much harder than S2 (which I am already doing)?
Do m2 if you got a decent score in m1 its basically the same thing but with different concepts for eg power
Reply 2
Original post by samgraham98
I am currently doing Maths and Further Maths at Year 13 but I don't do physics? I am considering swapping M2 for S3 because I have no interest in doing anything later on that might require knowledge of Mechanics. I fear I might struggle in M2 without doing physics. So, just a couple of questions for people who may have experience:

Is M2 extremely difficult without that much knowledge of Physics?

Is S3 much harder than S2 (which I am already doing)?



1) No. I have a friend who did M2 last year, and he got 88 UMS. He also didn't do Physics A Level. Having said that, he didn't like Mechanics. It is very possible for you to do well, but you may not enjoy it as much as stats (if you're that kind of person)

2) I would argue that S3 requires less outside the box thinking than S2. I found the questions were really repetitive with S3, and because you get a lot of marks for doing such basic methods, there's not much that can be done to make the questions different, otherwise you'd be getting 20 mark questions!

If you don't want to do Physics, then I would recommend you do S3.

Hope this helps a little :smile:
Reply 3
Physics mechanics leans more on M3 than M2. M2 is relatively simple so I'd recommend that :cute:
I didn't do Physics at all, and after getting 93 UMS on M1 I just took M2. So I'd recommend that. Depends on your base modules really.
Reply 5
Original post by samgraham98
I am currently doing Maths and Further Maths at Year 13 but I don't do physics? I am considering swapping M2 for S3 because I have no interest in doing anything later on that might require knowledge of Mechanics. I fear I might struggle in M2 without doing physics. So, just a couple of questions for people who may have experience:

Is M2 extremely difficult without that much knowledge of Physics?

Is S3 much harder than S2 (which I am already doing)?


Hi, I've just finished Yr13 Further Maths and had to make the same decision as you. I chose S3 and in my opinion it's actually easier than S2. This is due to the increased algebra and integration in S2 that I'm not very good at! S3 is considerably shorter than M2. Also, a lot of S3 is shared in S2 with hypothesis tests and sampling so this will certainly aid your understanding of each other module if you'll be doing S2 anyway? That's my advice but see how you do in M1 and S1 and do whatever you think you'll do better in next year. If you do similar, then imo S3 is better as it's shorter and helps you with S2 whilst S2 will help you with S3.

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