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Sixth Form Maths

Don't do further maths unless you really are good, it's not for the faint of heart. I love my maths, hence the maths degree so doing further wasn't too bad, but some of the later calculus gets a little nasty. But you do get to do decision stuff which is awesome.
 
Maths is an interesting beast in that my experience it get exponentially harder the further you progress. By which I mean that once you approach the limit of your ability, things start getting tough very quickly. I cruised through GCSE and took it a year early, found A-level fairly easy except for some rather boring stats and then hit a wall at degree level. Whereas other stuff I've studied seems a bit more linear in terms of how the level of difficulty ramps up.

I think part of this is down to the fact that it is very hard to BS your way through Maths. Either you know how to solve a problem, or you don't. Whereas most subjects you can still get an OK mark from giving a reasonable answer even if it isn't on the money and you don't fully understand what you are talking about.
 
Nitefly said:
AFAIK 'decision maths' helps to some extent with programming, not sure if that affects you at all.
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It's more the other way round, although decision is good for programming if you learn a language then most of the guides use examples of the algorithms you use in decision, so when you come to them in maths they are really easy.

That's how I found it anyway
 
Well the RAF probably aren't going to ask you what modules you did, but M1 ties in nicely with physics and it is all related to real life, which makes it a bit more interesting!
 
From your opinions I'm going to do Mechanics :)

The RAF have already asked me what I plan to do and they prefer Maths and Physics over anything, but not a specific math.

Just need to wait until April, get my Sponsorship then into college :)

Thanks for your help.
 
im doing further maths (physics + computing as well) and just doing my jan exams in second year, got physics on monday and core4 on thursday, core 3 and m2 just done and went well :)

by the end i will have done...

core 1,2,3,4
mechanics 1,2
decision 1,2
stats 1
further pure 1,2,4 (we got to choose between 3 + 4)

m1 is pretty much the same stuff as physics in the first year but m2 less so in the second year

i personally dont like stats as much as other modules so am doing d2 instead of s2, and decision is pretty easy and links in nicely with computing, although not relevant to you :p

so with maths + mechanics you get core 1-4 and mechanics 1-2 which would be a good option, or further maths, which is an extra ticket into uni, usually knocks the AAA offer to AAB or at the least increases your chances of getting in. ive got 5 offers: warwick durham manchester leeds york for joint maths - physics :) with only durham asking for 3A even with further maths so its deffinatly an advantage in that sense.

at the end of the day its up to you! having chosen further i dont regret it at all and would much rather be doing this than single maths :)
 
I think i'm going to have to speak to my current maths teacher and email the women from college about it, hopefully they can point me in the best direction given they know me.
 
The wierd thing about training to be an pilot is that you need 2 A levels. 2 A-Levels in anything, you could go in with history and spanish if you wanted :o
 
I'd imagine because training to be a pilot will be much more dependant on your ability to fly planes than whether you can accurately calculate the stiffness of a spring between two little carts rolling towards each other :p
 
if your good at maths and getting mostly A's at gcse then further maths isnt too hard, you can always do further maths then drop to normal maths after the first jan exams or first year if you dont fancy it
 
For this GCSE there are 3 exams and 2 pieces of coursework. I've done two exams and got A's in both and had A's in all my coursework also. The final exam is in a few weeks I think. Currently i'm at an A but it all lies on the final exam.
 
If you are not considering an engineering degree or do not have a strong passion for maths, I would suggest you did not pursue further maths and focused on something which displays other skills as well as taking standard maths.
 
Nitefly said:
If you are not considering an engineering degree or do not have a strong passion for maths, I would suggest you did not pursue further maths and focused on something which displays other skills as well as taking standard maths.
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+1

AS - first units: Further Pure 1, Further Pure 2 or Mechanics 3 or Statistics 3.
A2 - second units: Further Pure 2 Further Pure 3 and 1 other application

(from my 6th form prospectus page)

This isn't how it actually worked out for us though... we were introduced to FP1 for a couple of weeks, but then did/do S1, as it won't be covered in regular maths (yay!).

I find maths interesting, which is why I took maths and further maths; I quickly grew to hate further maths as it involves a lot of statistics, and isn't needed for anything I plan to do.

Edit: I have now dropped further maths... One of the reasons I took it was because it replaced general studies, which I didn't really want to do as it's mostly useless (we are going to make a video for our kids/grandkids to show what life was like in the 1990s/2000s - first general studies lesson I took).
 
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i suppose it depends on what further maths includes at your college, but i think youll be fine with just maths mechanics, more time to focus on getting the best 3 grades you can :)
 
I concur with the general concensus. Don't take further maths. Take pure and mechanics. If you're not certain about the A* at GCSE maths then the maths A-level will provide a nice challenge whereas further maths will be overkill. The higher pure's are a lot more conceptual and further maths is unnecessary for your plans anyway so won't help you a huge amount.
 
If you're not on an A* further maths will crush your soul, and even if you are, it probably still will :p

Maths you can get away with not working too hard, but Further maths requires you to work hard all the time, even for the geniuses who take it.
 
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