A-level maths any help for development?

Hi,

I'm approaching mid-career, and am finding it difficult to engage with development opportunities in my field (say engaging with academic literature and learning more advanced analytical techniques). I graduated with a bachelors about 15yrs+ ago, which was reasonably technical but I scraped through without A-level maths and always felt this was a drag.

Things that i'm often trying to do depend on a fairly advanced understanding of calculus and linear algebra, and to a lesser extent stats. Now the resources online are fantastic compared to when I was at uni, so to some extent I feel I can make some headway in targeted areas, the issue is when dependencies arise.

So my question is - will doing an A-level in maths actually help develop these skills, or will it just give me loads of peripheral knowledge I don't need and/or rote learning to satisfy the examiner? My high school maths was exactly the latter, but i'm sure it's down to the student. I'm not really interested in the signal value of a qualification it's more about a genuine development need.

Thanks for reading! and grateful for any advice.

(edited 7 months ago)

Reply 1

MindMax2000

Universities Forum Helper

21

Original post by mktforfour?

Hi,

I'm approaching mid-career, and am finding it difficult to engage with development opportunities in my field (say engaging with academic literature and learning more advanced analytical techniques). I graduated with a bachelors about 15yrs+ ago, which was reasonably technical but I scraped through without A-level maths and always felt this was a drag.

Things that i'm often trying to do depend on a fairly advanced understanding of calculus and linear algebra, and to a lesser extent stats. Now the resources online are fantastic compared to when I was at uni, so to some extent I feel I can make some headway in targeted areas, the issue is when dependencies arise.

So my question is - will doing an A-level in maths actually help develop these skills, or will it just give me loads of peripheral knowledge I don't need and/or rote learning to satisfy the examiner? My high school maths was exactly the latter, but i'm sure it's down to the student. I'm not really interested in the signal value of a qualification it's more about a genuine development need.

Thanks for reading! and grateful for any advice.

This sounds like something to do with engineering.

Linear algebra isn't really fully explored in A Level Maths; it's more of a Further Maths topic. Also, A Level Maths only include the more introductory topics in calculus (I haven't done engineering yet, so I don't know how far it goes), whereas Further Maths goes into the more advanced topics. Stats is also a very wide field, so I don't know what specific knowledge you would need from the A Levels.

A Level Maths includes a lot of material outside of calculus and linear algebra, so I don't know whether you would be happy with it or whether you would need something very specific. I personally would do it for the challenge and the fun of learning extra maths (fellow maths guy), but if you're looking for something specific it might not be as suitable.

If you want to learn and then brush up on the skills using A Levels, then I would learn the material from the A Level then practice on past papers. The exam papers tend to stretch you in your application and problem solving as opposed to the exercise problems.

Personally, if I wanted to brush up on something specific, I would use textbooks more specific to the topic. I would either pick the appropriate textbook aimed at university level (ideally related to your occupation so you get the applied knowledge e.g. calculus for engineering, linear programming for mechanical engineers), or more appropriately the Schuam's Outlines series on calculus and linear programming.
The good thing about the Schaum's Outlines series is that they tend to be cheap as second hand books (I would also strongly recommend getting the university textbooks as second hand - e.g. £5 for some books vs £50 brand new), and they are airmed at A Level/university level, so you should get what you need from them (assuming you have a sufficient depth of calculus and linear programming). The series would have over 500 questions for you to practice from in each book (so pick and choose what you want as opposed to doing all of them).

Reply 2

Muttley79

20

Original post by mktforfour?

Hi,

I'm approaching mid-career, and am finding it difficult to engage with development opportunities in my field (say engaging with academic literature and learning more advanced analytical techniques). I graduated with a bachelors about 15yrs+ ago, which was reasonably technical but I scraped through without A-level maths and always felt this was a drag.

Things that i'm often trying to do depend on a fairly advanced understanding of calculus and linear algebra, and to a lesser extent stats. Now the resources online are fantastic compared to when I was at uni, so to some extent I feel I can make some headway in targeted areas, the issue is when dependencies arise.

So my question is - will doing an A-level in maths actually help develop these skills, or will it just give me loads of peripheral knowledge I don't need and/or rote learning to satisfy the examiner? My high school maths was exactly the latter, but i'm sure it's down to the student. I'm not really interested in the signal value of a qualification it's more about a genuine development need.

Thanks for reading! and grateful for any advice.

You can get an idea of the content by looking at the spec or looking here: https://www.drfrostmaths.com/courses.php?coid=29

A-level maths any help for development?

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