a* at a level maths

how have people effectively gotten an a*?

hii!! i’m in yr13 and i got an A* in the actual alevel in yr12 (i do fm so we take maths a year early). i did edexcel btw. my biggest tips:
- practice integration and differentiation daily. not too much, just 5-10 each per day - super important!!
- do papers, but more importantly old spec international papers (search c12 and c34 past papers pmt). they’re super close to the edexcel spec!!
- learn from those papers ^ do questions by topic on any topics you underperformed in.
- make sure you’re solid on the big topics (integration, differentiation, trigonometry, logs+exponentials)
- focus mainly on pure, as it’s 2/3rds of your grade, but don’t forget about applied and be sure to practice them too
- work on how you think about larger questions - approach them step by step & think of what you would do in a normal situation where you have that question (works best when it’s algebraic) - this one may not make sense haha

i have much more tbh ik it’s a lot but hope this helps

This is such good advice!!!! I haven't started focusing on topics instead of just doing exercises from the book. tysmm do you have more tips? Any would be much appreciated!

i feel like the textbooks aren’t amazing tbh. if you do textbook questions, i would suggest focusing solely on the ones that say (E/P) next to it or the review exercises!! definitely make use of the old spec papers. look out for standard questions (that turn up a lot). i have school now but i’ll come back to this thread later to throw in some more tips!

hii!! i’m in yr13 and i got an A* in the actual alevel in yr12 (i do fm so we take maths a year early). i did edexcel btw. my biggest tips:
- practice integration and differentiation daily. not too much, just 5-10 each per day - super important!!
- do papers, but more importantly old spec international papers (search c12 and c34 past papers pmt). they’re super close to the edexcel spec!!
- learn from those papers ^ do questions by topic on any topics you underperformed in.
- make sure you’re solid on the big topics (integration, differentiation, trigonometry, logs+exponentials)
- focus mainly on pure, as it’s 2/3rds of your grade, but don’t forget about applied and be sure to practice them too
- work on how you think about larger questions - approach them step by step & think of what you would do in a normal situation where you have that question (works best when it’s algebraic) - this one may not make sense haha
i have much more tbh ik it’s a lot but hope this helps