The student guide to a level maths
Overview
A Level Maths is one of the most popular and widely chosen A Levels. It has a multitude of applications and is a core subject that lays the foundation for your higher studies. Within this edition of the student guide we’ll be looking through the A Level course. In addition, we’ll be walking through some useful resources and tips to elevate your understanding.
Why Choose A Level Maths
A Level Maths will vastly improve your problem solving and analytical skills. It will also provide you with a wide array of tools that you can use in your A Level subjects. It greatly complements the sciences, economics and technology and is commonly chosen alongside such A Levels. Furthermore, it will offer you with a more in-depth and structured approach to the study of mathematics than GCSE.
A Level Maths provides great versatility and is often a prerequisite to many university degrees. You should have a look at the course requirements for your university as this will aid your decision in picking your A Levels. Moreover, we recommend that you speak to your school if you are unsure about whether you should choose A Level Maths.
What's Included In The Course?
Generally, the A Level Maths course is split into two broad themes consisting of Pure Mathematics and Applied Mathematics.
Pure Mathematics covers the fundamental topics within the course. On the other hand, Applied Mathematics makes use of the techniques and knowledge acquired in Pure Mathematics. Applied Mathematics often includes statistics and mechanics. Within statistics, you will learn how to display, interpret and analyse data whilst in mechanics you’ll learn how to model physical objects that are at rest (statics) and in motion (dynamics).
Regardless of the exam board, A Level Maths mainly covers the following topics:
- Proof
- Algebra and functions
- Coordinate Geometry
- Sequences and series
- Trigonometry
- Exponentials and Logs
- Differentiation
- Integration
- Numerical Methods
- Vectors
- Statistical sampling
- Data presentation and handling
- Probability
- Statistical distributions
- Quantities and units in mechanics
- Kinematics
- Forces and Newton’s Laws
- Moments
What Are The Best Resources For A Level Maths?
Whilst there are many resources available for A Level Maths, we have highlighted below what we believe to be the most useful ones:
A Level Maths Revision: A Level Maths Revision is an excellent website with a bundle of resources – from questions by topic to revision notes. It covers topics from the whole course for various exam boards and is a great resource to practice from. We recommend using their exam questions by topic regularly to build up experience across different topics and focus on any weak points you may have. If you are confident with the content then their A* questions are a worthwhile asset to target the difficult questions seen within exam papers.
TL Maths: TL Maths is a useful channel that covers the course for several exam boards. It includes explanatory videos covering content from the A Level course as well as worked solutions to example problems to accompany those explanations. We recommend using TL Maths to introduce yourself to a certain topic or to understand a topic you can’t quite get your head around.
Bicen Maths: Bicen Maths is another helpful channel that mainly covers the Edexcel specification but is suitable for any exam board as many topics are in common between the exam boards. Along with detailed explanations for each topic, they have concise summaries available for the course as well as exam walkthroughs. Although if you prefer to read rather than watch, we recommend their Google Drive folder available on their About page.
Dr Frost Maths: Dr Frost Maths is a website with various resources that contain lesson slides as well as the ability to practice questions of varying difficulty with an extensive question bank. Whilst they mainly focus on the Edexcel specification, the website can still be used regardless of your exam board.
What Are The Best Techniques For A Level Maths?
Be Comfortable with your Calculator: Make sure you are familiar with how to use your calculator and the different modes with your calculator. The calculator we’d recommend for A Level is the Casio fx-991EX, which contains all the features required to get you through your A Level. For such a calculator, you can find resources and guides on how to use the calculator here
Practise to Prepare: Whilst knowing the content is vital to do well in the exams, you should be supplement it with regular practice. Make sure to not leave all of the practice till the end. It is essential that you regularly consult exam questions along with question worksheets and textbook questions as you learn a topic.
Solid Foundations: The topics learnt at the start of the A Level course are fundamental to understanding the topics that are learnt later. If you feel like any of the earlier topics you studied are a weak point, then you should especially target such topics as this will be very beneficial towards ensuring that you do not struggle later on in the course. Exam questions (in particular those with a higher number of marks) usually draft upon several topics at once and you will require consistency within each topic to fluidly and accurately answer them.
Start Early: As with any A Level, it is important that you start looking at the course from early on. We would recommend doing so in the summer between Year 11 and Year 12. Whilst this will help you to stay organised, it will also reduce the pressure on you when your final exams come up.
You can find more of our guides and resources here.