Lo and behold, today's post marks the end of the 'A-Level Experience' mini-series on this blog of mine; quite frankly, I never thought I would see the day! Whether you are a Year 10 or Year 11 student currently thinking about taking up A-Level Maths or you're simply curious as to how I got on with the subject - and indeed how I, at times, didn't - I hope that this post provides some sort of value. As per usual, be sure to let me know any thoughts you have in the comments down below and let's dive right in!
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Before we delve into the main body of this post, I thought it may be useful to note that my experience is, of course, just that. I am not speaking for every person to have taken A-Level Maths so, if it is a subject you are considering to take, I would seek opinions from others also - particularly those at your school. Furthermore, I studied maths on the Edexcel exam board and would highly encourage you to find out which exam board your school follows in case the information regarding course structure is not applicable to you. If you would like to see how I revised for A-Level Maths, you can see my blog post here.
WHY MATHS?
Aside from biology - which, as you may or may not know, was later replaced with Spanish - there was one other A-Level that I was in constant limbo about taking: maths. Truth be told, I was never naturally good at maths and had to put in a hell of a lot of work to get the results I did. What's more is that it wasn't even until Year 11 that I really began to enjoy the subject, as I began to feel the puzzle pieces click together following a few rocky years. However, with a steady improvement in my grades as well as encouragement from both my parents and school, I thought there would be no harm in picking the subject up; after all, I had had a fantastic teacher at GCSE and believed my school's department to be quite strong overall.
WHAT THE A-LEVEL COURSE LOOKS LIKE
The A-Level course is split into three main components: Pure, Statistics and Mechanics. At the end of the course, you will be expected to take three two hour-long exams, each marked out of a total of 100. Two of those papers will be Pure Maths papers, where you will be examined on any of the Pure Maths topics studied both at AS and A2, and one will be a Statistics and Mechanics paper where you will too be assessed on elements studied throughout the two year course. Performance in each of these papers is equally weighted, although the percentage given to each AO varies between the first two papers and the third paper (see pages 39 and 40 of the specification here).
Pure Maths is in many ways an extension of the GCSE Maths course, with many topics such as circles expanding on your previous knowledge. There are also, however, topics that will be completely new to you if you did not do another GCSE qualification such as Further Maths or Statistics, such as differentiation and logarithms. These, however, will be found towards of the end of the Year 12 course - although it is, of course, your school's choice as to which order they teach the subject.
As far as I am aware, the most commonly used textbooks are those with the blue Fibonacci spiral written by Greg Attwood and Harry Smith. You can click here if you fancy flipping through the textbook and having a little look for yourself.
Statistics, I feel, is a rather self-explanatory and in many ways follows what I have said above about Pure Maths. As well as delving deeper into aspects of data presentation taught at GCSE, such as histograms and box plots (yes, those really are on the A-Level course!), you can also expect to learn about measures such as standard deviation and data distributions - which you, most likely, will not have come across before. Again, Amazon allows you to preview the first couple of sections of the textbook so I would highly recommend flipping through the topics and having a little look online to gage the level of difficulty.
Mechanics, on the other hand, is a little different. In some ways, it acts as an extension of the maths seen on GCSE Physics courses, with topics such as forces and friction, but you also delve into topics such as projectiles and pulleys - which are completely new. For me, this was the trickiest part of the course as it was rather situational; in fact, while we're on the topic, this is one of the greatest changes that has been made to the A-Level Maths course - things are no longer spelt out in the question, said questions are now wordier and you are expected to work out what to do when you are given a little bit of context.
Pure Maths is in many ways an extension of the GCSE Maths course, with many topics such as circles expanding on your previous knowledge. There are also, however, topics that will be completely new to you if you did not do another GCSE qualification such as Further Maths or Statistics, such as differentiation and logarithms. These, however, will be found towards of the end of the Year 12 course - although it is, of course, your school's choice as to which order they teach the subject.
As far as I am aware, the most commonly used textbooks are those with the blue Fibonacci spiral written by Greg Attwood and Harry Smith. You can click here if you fancy flipping through the textbook and having a little look for yourself.
Statistics, I feel, is a rather self-explanatory and in many ways follows what I have said above about Pure Maths. As well as delving deeper into aspects of data presentation taught at GCSE, such as histograms and box plots (yes, those really are on the A-Level course!), you can also expect to learn about measures such as standard deviation and data distributions - which you, most likely, will not have come across before. Again, Amazon allows you to preview the first couple of sections of the textbook so I would highly recommend flipping through the topics and having a little look online to gage the level of difficulty.
Mechanics, on the other hand, is a little different. In some ways, it acts as an extension of the maths seen on GCSE Physics courses, with topics such as forces and friction, but you also delve into topics such as projectiles and pulleys - which are completely new. For me, this was the trickiest part of the course as it was rather situational; in fact, while we're on the topic, this is one of the greatest changes that has been made to the A-Level Maths course - things are no longer spelt out in the question, said questions are now wordier and you are expected to work out what to do when you are given a little bit of context.
MY EXPERIENCE
To say that I have had a rocky experience with A-Level Maths would be an understatement but, in all honesty, I believe that the reasoning behind that is in large part due to my school's individual policies rather than the subject as a whole.
Let's not beat around the bush: while I recognise that most, if not all, A-Levels will be difficult in some respect, it's fair to say that maths is among the hardest subjects that you can take. The main reason for this is the recent changes to the qualification - that is to say, exams are no longer modular and you will take all exams at the end of Year 13 with the possibility of being examined on any element of the course. This means that there is an extraordinary amount of content that now has to be learnt for these final exams and teaching, at points, had to be rushed to get through the course on time. What's more is that Maths is a skills-based subject; there is simply no cramming that can be done, the only way to be successful is to continually go over topics that you have covered previously to keep yourself up-to-date with the material and to make sure you have an understanding of what it is you are learning. As a result, those that enjoyed the subject but were not necessarily passionate about it (including myself, of course) were not as willing to put the time or the effort to do the practice required as those that lived, breathed and ate the subject. Perhaps things would have been different, though, if my school had let me take the AS exam and then drop the subject to focus on my main three subjects.
Furthermore, my school did not provide the full teaching time that was required for the course in Year 12 - and while a lesson missed a week doesn't sound like the end of the world, the hours add up quickly! This meant that, in many ways, Year 13 was a game of catch-up in addition to having to learn the new content - naturally rather stressful. Luckily, though, there is an abundance of resources online for the subject and was able to make the best of the situation where possible.
What perplexed me, though, is how difficult I found the transition between Year 12 and Year 13 as the AS element seemed to be designed brilliantly, easing you in gradually before introducing more difficult concepts. Naturally, this hit me like a tonne of bricks and caused a lot of stress given that I was in the middle of the whole UCAS fiasco at the time.
That being said, towards the end of Year 13, many aspects of the course finally began to come together and make sense - a similar experience to the one I had had at GCSE. What's more is that, as you begin to come out of the initial struggle and begin to understand a topic such as integration, maths as a subject becomes rewarding like none other. Additionally, the revision process for maths may have been time-consuming, but it was comparatively very straightforward and made for a lovely break in-between my other three essay based subjects. Not all doom and gloom, am I right?
Let's not beat around the bush: while I recognise that most, if not all, A-Levels will be difficult in some respect, it's fair to say that maths is among the hardest subjects that you can take. The main reason for this is the recent changes to the qualification - that is to say, exams are no longer modular and you will take all exams at the end of Year 13 with the possibility of being examined on any element of the course. This means that there is an extraordinary amount of content that now has to be learnt for these final exams and teaching, at points, had to be rushed to get through the course on time. What's more is that Maths is a skills-based subject; there is simply no cramming that can be done, the only way to be successful is to continually go over topics that you have covered previously to keep yourself up-to-date with the material and to make sure you have an understanding of what it is you are learning. As a result, those that enjoyed the subject but were not necessarily passionate about it (including myself, of course) were not as willing to put the time or the effort to do the practice required as those that lived, breathed and ate the subject. Perhaps things would have been different, though, if my school had let me take the AS exam and then drop the subject to focus on my main three subjects.
Furthermore, my school did not provide the full teaching time that was required for the course in Year 12 - and while a lesson missed a week doesn't sound like the end of the world, the hours add up quickly! This meant that, in many ways, Year 13 was a game of catch-up in addition to having to learn the new content - naturally rather stressful. Luckily, though, there is an abundance of resources online for the subject and was able to make the best of the situation where possible.
What perplexed me, though, is how difficult I found the transition between Year 12 and Year 13 as the AS element seemed to be designed brilliantly, easing you in gradually before introducing more difficult concepts. Naturally, this hit me like a tonne of bricks and caused a lot of stress given that I was in the middle of the whole UCAS fiasco at the time.
That being said, towards the end of Year 13, many aspects of the course finally began to come together and make sense - a similar experience to the one I had had at GCSE. What's more is that, as you begin to come out of the initial struggle and begin to understand a topic such as integration, maths as a subject becomes rewarding like none other. Additionally, the revision process for maths may have been time-consuming, but it was comparatively very straightforward and made for a lovely break in-between my other three essay based subjects. Not all doom and gloom, am I right?
SHOULD YOU TAKE IT?
Do I regret taking A-Level Maths? In some ways, yes. In others, certainly not.
If you are truly passionate, and I mean passionate, about maths and are somebody who can consistently put 100% into the subject, I would definitely recommend taking the subject. In many ways, your performance is maths at A-Level has nothing to do with your natural ability, but rather your attitude and commitment to the subject. It is difficult, there's no two ways about it, but it is by no means impossible and, if anything, that makes the whole experience all the more rewarding. What's more is that this very difficulty is recognised by both employers and universities alike and, importantly, maths is considered to be a 'facilitating' subject by Russell Group universities. In addition, there are aspects of the course that I believe are applicable to real-life scenarios and we cannot lose sight of the fact that maths (and, of course, problem-solving) skills are highly sought after by employers nowadays - making it an evermore useful subject to take, even if at AS level.
If you are truly passionate, and I mean passionate, about maths and are somebody who can consistently put 100% into the subject, I would definitely recommend taking the subject. In many ways, your performance is maths at A-Level has nothing to do with your natural ability, but rather your attitude and commitment to the subject. It is difficult, there's no two ways about it, but it is by no means impossible and, if anything, that makes the whole experience all the more rewarding. What's more is that this very difficulty is recognised by both employers and universities alike and, importantly, maths is considered to be a 'facilitating' subject by Russell Group universities. In addition, there are aspects of the course that I believe are applicable to real-life scenarios and we cannot lose sight of the fact that maths (and, of course, problem-solving) skills are highly sought after by employers nowadays - making it an evermore useful subject to take, even if at AS level.