maths help

hi everyone, i am at my wits end with maths a level. I do somewhat quantitative a levels, like Physics and Economics and I score higher in all of them (As) but seem to fail at normal Maths A Level. It's frustrating because mechanics requires a lot of maths in Physics but I BOMB any sort of applied Mech/ Stats in Maths.

I don't know why this is as I do practice questions and watch youtube videos to try and understand the concept and I get mostly everything correct when I work at home, but for some reason, in the exam I flop. I don't know if this is stress or something else but it's frustrating as Maths is the A level I need an A* in. Overall, I am extremely stressed about mocks as I think I'm just going to fail them all and there isn't enough time for me to push my grade up and I don't know HOW to revise Maths at all.

Reply 1

miss_nia

my advice for maths is to really understand where everything is coming from. it's one thing to learn a method, but there's a high chance you'll forget it if you don't understand it's roots or what it's actually doing. you need to be able to know how to tackle questions rather than learn methods and hope for the best because a lottt of questions are application. how to revise? there is only one way at this stage - past papers. every single one you can get your hands on - you'll start seeing patterns in questions and understanding what the exam boards really like to see. you need to work under exam conditions too, with real past papers to get a gist of the environment in the exam hall. youtube videos are really good too like you said, for consolidating knowledge!

especially for mechanics, understanding what is actually going on is so useful in a question, rather than memorising methods. this will take a lot of exam practice, but all i can urge you to do is exam practice! that's the best way to revise maths honestly.

well done on the As in physics and econ!! i feel like we're quite the opposite, i struggle more with physics 😭

good luck! i'm sure you'll get the A*!