How to do MAT questions at GCSE level?

Hello,
I'm trying to get a (really) early start on the Oxford MAT preparation. I'm self taught beyond GCSE Maths - so this includes Level 2 Further Maths and some of A - Level. I'm trying to get a feel for MAT questions but they're so hard! I can barely do any of the MCQ's, and I don't know where to begin for most of them. What do I teach myself so I have some ability to do it? Thanks in advance.

Hello,
I'm trying to get a (really) early start on the Oxford MAT preparation. I'm self taught beyond GCSE Maths - so this includes Level 2 Further Maths and some of A - Level. I'm trying to get a feel for MAT questions but they're so hard! I can barely do any of the MCQ's, and I don't know where to begin for most of them. What do I teach myself so I have some ability to do it? Thanks in advance.

Id not do the actual papers until youve covered the material (maths as), then use them for testing yourself about how well you understand it. Otherwise youll burn through them too soon. But there is the mat livestream videos, worksheets etc to get you started
https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/study-here/undergraduate-study/maths-admissions-test/mat-livestream
and the (limited) tmua paper 1s isnt that different from mat and some smc questions are relevant for the elementary maths side of things ... But like most things, if you cant do/get it wrong a question, do some background reflection/investigation and mark it up to come back to.
If you really are at gcse level (y11), Id focus on your gcses, maybe do some smc practice and starting thinking about mat in y12, maybe ~easter for a soft start.

Finish off learning the A level stuff. Make sure to use a good textbook set (I recommend the CAIE ones as they were well written imo and you can find them online). Be quick about it and for me, locking in for MAT in Feb of yr 12 and locking in for STEP in July between yr 12 and yr 13 seemed to work out alright.

Alright. Is TMUA paper 1 easier or harder than MAT? I would really just like to get used to the jump in difficulty from GCSE to A-Level.

Theyre both based on maths as and both tmua and mat have changed a bit this year and the new "papers" have not been made available. But the old tmua paper 1 was probably a bit easier than the mat mcq and a bit more focus on calculus. Mat mcq has calculus but more "elementary" questions, so a bit smc like.

Alright, so I just learn regular AS Maths? Any exam board? And yeah, I think i will do some SMC questions to try and help me, thanks for the recommendation 😁

If you look at the livestream topics / use one mat paper as an example, then its basically maths as + elementary stuff. Mat is at the start of y13 and some schools do maths fully in y12, others do maths as + fm as in y12 so all they can assume is that kids have covered by the start of y13 is ~maths as + elementary stuff like ~smc covers.
Youre probably overthinking it in terms of a particular board, rather read around / think about the topics and make sure your basics are up to scratch.

Did you manage to get in? Just curious. And thanks for the recommendation of the CAIE textbook, would it be AS level FM or just regular AS level maths?