A-Level Maths Week 2 Exam Preparation Tips
- Seyi
- Apr 9, 2023
- 6 min read
A-Levels Mathematics Exam Prep – Week 2
Great, so we’ve made it to week 2 and exams are now one week closer than they were last time.
Well, no fear, no worries, you’ve got this. It may not feel like it, but you do, so get yourself a drink, a biscuit to dunk in it and let’s go through how to revise for this exam. (On seconds thoughts if you’ve got yourself an orange juice or something DO NOT dunk a biscuit you absolute freak).
As I mentioned last time, I understand that for those of you sitting exams in 2022, you’ve never done national exams before and thus it follows that you have never had to revise for national exams before, so it makes sense that you may be asking “How do I revise?”. What I will say however, is take comfort that you made it this far, you’re nearly at the end of the course, and to have continued past the first year of it, you must be doing at least okay – so take heart, good grades are still possible.
And for those of you, who, full disclosure, were like me a few weeks before your Maths A-Level looking at everything and still really struggling with certain topics, don’t worry. Remember that it’s not too late, there’s still time for you to go over the tricky topics and get to that level of understanding you so desperately crave and want (right?).
So, without further ado, let’s get into it.
As you would have probably found when getting ready for your GCSE teacher assessments and perhaps in preparing for your GCSEs before they were scrapped, the best and only real way to revise maths is to do lots and lots of practise questions and papers.
However, to be able to do these, you need to understand what you are doing; here’s how to do that:
1. Review your class work
2. Use revision guides
3. Use websites & YouTube
4. Work with friends
5. Ask your teacher
1 – Review your class work
First thing to do when looking at a topic you can’t make sense of is to look at what you wrote in your book/folder when you went over it in class. Have a look at examples that you did and any steps you wrote for yourself. You may find that just by reviewing this, things make sense once again/for the first time.
2 – Use revision guides
If your class work doesn’t help then I would recommend using revision guides, but this comes with a caution. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend textbooks to help with understanding when it comes to A-levels maths as I believe they don’t explain things in the simplest terms and often assume you have a basic knowledge of something else and if that ‘something else’ is something you’re also missing currently from your knowledge bank then it won’t make sense and will just leave you feeling more confused. However, if you’ve been using textbooks to explain things to you thus far and you find them useful, then please, go ahead! As for revision guides, they’re okay but I’d still maintain a level of caution. A-level maths can be quite complex, and I fear revision guides sometimes simplify topics too much or only show how you how to do the basic level/questions from the topic but miss out on the top scoring questions. I think they are a good place to start so I would definitely recommend them if you’re looking to see the basics of a topic, but I’d recommend using tip 3 in conjunction with this to ensure you’re not blindsided in the exam.
3 – Use websites and YouTube
After number 4, this was my next most used resource and technique for learning content for my A-level maths exams. This can be really useful as sometimes just having someone else explain what you already knew (or didn’t know) can help things click. What I find especially helpful with this is starting with the videos explaining the foundations of a topic all the way to the videos explaining the A* questions. You may think that you know all the basic stuff but there may be one very little thing you have forgotten, misunderstood or never knew, that helps explain everything going on at the more advanced level. I’ve left a list of good websites and YouTube channels below.
FREE RESOURCES
· Mr Barton Maths
· Maths Genie
· Khan Academy
· WooTube (bear in mind it’s Australian based so their year 11 is our year 12 etc!)
· YouTube: Hegarty Maths
4 – Work with friends
So, this is my favourite and most nostalgic tip as this right here, is how I passed my maths A-level.
JAMES, IF YOU’RE READING THIS I OWE MUCH OF MY MATHS A-LEVEL TO YOU, THANK YOUUUU!
Jokes aside though, my friend James really helped me to understand some of the maths A-level I, at the time, thought impossible to understand. We spent time in school and sometimes after school/in the holidays just going through what I didn’t understand and he’d take the time to explain where I was going wrong or question my questions, helping me to realise myself where I was going wrong.
Everyone may not have a good friend like James, who also happens to be great at understanding maths, but there may be an acquaintance or classmate that you could ask for help.
For those of you who are painfully shy, fiercely independent or just don’t feel close enough to anyone else who does maths then you may hate the idea of asking someone else for help, but please remember – you’re so so close! Don’t let not wanting to ask someone stop you from getting the grades you deserve, ask them for the help you need.
“Oh, but Seyi, I’ll feel like a burden.” Well absolutely no need to. By them helping you through whatever topic it is you’re struggling with, they’ll be reinforcing their knowledge. Teaching is one of the best forms of revision and you may even be able to help them with a different topic back – it’s a win-win situation.
But on an even more serious note, let’s lift a glass to James, the real MVP.
5 – Ask your teacher
This will always be on the top of the ‘how to understand maths’ pyramid. Your teacher is the fountain of knowledge when it comes to these exams and know everything you need to know to pass. Put aside anything like ‘they don’t like me’ – you can’t let that stand in the way of you and your grades, they’ve got their qualifications, you need to get yours. However, if that seems highly impossible or you’re thinking “The whole reason I’m here is because I have a really bad maths teacher, they can’t help me!!”, then try finding another maths teacher to talk to or go to a maths revision class if your school offers it. And if your teacher is not an option for whatever reason, points 1-4 (&6) should really come to your aid.
6 – Bonus Tip: Know your calculator
I cannot stress this tip enough! Whether you’re using a standard calculator or using a graphical calculator, ensure you know how to use it well! With the standard calculators ensure you know how to use all the different binomial distribution functions, the trig functions, the log functions and the memory functions, they can save you so much time! With the graphical calculators ensure you know how to do all that as well as how to view graphs and use some of the other stat functions. I wouldn’t recommend you use it to just write answers down (you need to show your working out anyway) but it can be great to know these functions as you can then check your answers with them. Here is a link to help you get the most out of your calculator.
You can also try typing in the name of the exact calculator you have and then ‘tutorial’ or ‘tutorial for A-level Maths’ in to YouTube or Google but the link above is a good place to start.
N.B: Make sure you check what calculators are allowed in your exam board. The worst thing would be to have learned all these different functions and then have your calculator taken away at the beginning of the exam because it is not allowed.
Right, so a lot of information but you’re now well on your way to smashing these exams. I’ll see you next week!
Have any questions about how to prepare for your A-Level exams? Having problems with any hard to understand content or tricky past exam questions? Then ask Seyi. Seyi will be hosting a series of Q&A webinars in the 2 weeks before final exams. Post your questions here, and Seyi will answer them in these sessions.
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