The Student Room Group

AQA a level maths

Hiya,
I'm currently in year 12 studying the AS level content - and I'm struggling to do well and get the grades I want. I'm currently working at a B (60+%) and would love to get an A* (80+% roughly) in my may mocks and for the real deal. My issue is mainly how to tackle exam questions - I am aware it is a lot of practice.

But I was wondering if anyone had a method of breaking down long, "complex" maths questions to make it easier and more digestable. I usually struggle with where to start or how to continue once identifying the maths I should be doing. I.e it is circle geometry and differentiation but where to start? As that is my main issue - the other struggles can easily be solved by understanding the topic and practising more maths questions!

Also please could someone recommend where I can get maths questions (I'm aware of revisely, physics and maths tutor. Maths genie and Dr frost I don't really like it for a level)?

Thank you very much in advance
Reply 1
Original post by Trickia
Hiya,
I'm currently in year 12 studying the AS level content - and I'm struggling to do well and get the grades I want. I'm currently working at a B (60+%) and would love to get an A* (80+% roughly) in my may mocks and for the real deal. My issue is mainly how to tackle exam questions - I am aware it is a lot of practice.
But I was wondering if anyone had a method of breaking down long, "complex" maths questions to make it easier and more digestable. I usually struggle with where to start or how to continue once identifying the maths I should be doing. I.e it is circle geometry and differentiation but where to start? As that is my main issue - the other struggles can easily be solved by understanding the topic and practising more maths questions!
Also please could someone recommend where I can get maths questions (I'm aware of revisely, physics and maths tutor. Maths genie and Dr frost I don't really like it for a level)?
Thank you very much in advance

As well as doing aqa exam questions, edexcel are similar if you run out and tbh with ~7 years worth of both boards, you should have enough? Ocr is sometimes regarded as a bit harder than aqa/edexcel (but not that much) but that can be good to train hard/fight easy. madas is less a level specific but have a good range of harder questions.

For doing harder questions, it partially depends on the topic, but for something like circle geometry, a sketch is useful for thinking about what you want to calculate and how. Tbh, even for functions, differentiation, .. it can come in useful. But you can always post for a hint about how to get started/why/.... But reflection is important, so if you get stuck on a question, review the topic and see if you can identify why you got stuck and how to avoid it in the future and come back to some of the questions in a month or two.
(edited 1 month ago)
Original post by mqb2766
As well as doing aqa exam questions, edexcel are similar if you run out and tbh with ~7 years worth of both boards, you should have enough? Ocr is sometimes regarded as a bit harder than aqa/edexcel (but not that much) but that can be good to train hard/fight easy. madas is less a level specific but have a good range of harder questions.
For doing harder questions, it partially depends on the topic, but for something like circle geometry, a sketch is useful for thinking about what you want to calculate and how. Tbh, even for functions, differentiation, .. it can come in useful. But you can always post for a hint about how to get started/why/.... But reflection is important, so if you get stuck on a question, review the topic and see if you can identify why you got stuck and how to avoid it in the future and come back to some of the questions in a month or two.

Thank you so much will bear that in mind! Do you have any YouTubers for AQA that you recommend that are exam board specific? I have found tlmaths and GCSE maths tutor (as they cover a level maths content). Yes that's a good idea asking for a hint or the next step to help move forward! I do usually draw out diagrams as it helps me solve the question 🙂
Reply 3
Original post by Trickia
Thank you so much will bear that in mind! Do you have any YouTubers for AQA that you recommend that are exam board specific? I have found tlmaths and GCSE maths tutor (as they cover a level maths content). Yes that's a good idea asking for a hint or the next step to help move forward! I do usually draw out diagrams as it helps me solve the question 🙂

tlmaths is usually regarded as the main one for aqa, but really the boards are not that much different. Ive heard bicen maths is good / focussed for edexcel.

Rather than watching videos, another approach for getting started is to do the odd question open book (if youre finding it really difficult to get started). So briefly flick through your notes/textbook for the main concepts for the topic and think about which ones are relevant for your question. Time spent understanding why youre having difficulties is rarely wasted and hitting youtube too quickly can simply gloss over the initial steps of getting started with a problem.

But another thing to do is make sure you have a clear understanding of the syllabus / topics and mark on it what youre confident with/what youre having problems with/... Maths is notorious for not being able to do a question if there is a small misunderstanding on a specific topic/item. So you need to make sure youve covered them all.
Original post by mqb2766
tlmaths is usually regarded as the main one for aqa, but really the boards are not that much different. Ive heard bicen maths is good / focussed for edexcel.
Rather than watching videos, another approach for getting started is to do the odd question open book (if youre finding it really difficult to get started). So briefly flick through your notes/textbook for the main concepts for the topic and think about which ones are relevant for your question. Time spent understanding why youre having difficulties is rarely wasted and hitting youtube too quickly can simply gloss over the initial steps of getting started with a problem.
But another thing to do is make sure you have a clear understanding of the syllabus / topics and mark on it what youre confident with/what youre having problems with/... Maths is notorious for not being able to do a question if there is a small misunderstanding on a specific topic/item. So you need to make sure youve covered them all.

Okay understood thank you again:ta:

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