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Self-teaching A-Level Further Maths (FM)

I am planning on teaching myself Edexcel A-Level FM as I cannot do it in my sixth form, and was wondering if anyone had tips for teaching it to yourself? Also is it even feasible, as my teachers have said it is probably too hard (despite my 9 at GCSE and A* predicted at A-Level normal Maths).

Reply 1

{Moss}

I've not done A Level FM myself, but have been homeschooled, so here's my humble take haha.
Firstly, I believe yes: it is most certainly doable. Nowadays there are so many resources online, the ability to access past papers, etc., that there's quite a lot of support for you. There are also the revision guides and practice which are very helpful, and many other textbooks you can find online. Something else that might be of help if you do go this route, I noted that on EdX (the course place), there are courses by Imperial college London, for each year of further maths, e.g. here. May be useful?

Secondly, importantly, a great passion for Maths would of course be required (which I assume you have from your great grades), and also great motivation. It can be hard to teach yourself, and you really need to push yourself to do so and find ways of encouraging yourself.

As for tips, I find that a timetable definitely helps. Make sure to set yourself regular breaks. Also, if you ever feel burnt out, just take a long break and come back when you feel refreshed. Unsure how long you want to do this for/when you want to take the exam, but you can tailor how much you do it for yourself. I personally like to do it by topic, do some questions, revise those questions (anything you got wrong). Then move on: a popular technique for this actually involves making it so, from what you've done, you set yourself some questions every week, maybe just 5, for each topic, and then you do them. If you get all Q's right for that topic, the next time you revise it will be in two weeks. If you fail that time, move it back to every week. If you succeed, move it to every 3 weeks, then 5, etc., and that reinforces your learning and makes it more manageable.

Excluding online resources, the CGP books and Pearson's own books are really useful. If you search 'edexcel further maths a level free resources' on Google, there's an Edexcel PDF with loads of practice papers and useful resources.

Loads of this is probably unnecessary, but hopefully you can take a little away from this, and sorry for my rambling haha :smile: