Preparation
Make sure you learn notation. For example: elongated S shapes mean ‘integrate’, Greek E shapes mean ‘add up’ and apostrophes mean ‘differentiate’.
Past papers are the future.
If you want to aim for the highest grades, try to answer questions which are harder than you would expect to meet (as exhibited by the Solomon papers).
Ask a teacher if there is something you don't understand.
Revision should always come after a period of concentrated vision - you cannot properly revise something you never properly learnt in the first place.
You can never really know that you understand something in Maths until you have answered some questions about it.
A good way to try to memorize a fact is to try to write a Top Tip about it.
If you find yourself stuck when revising, talk to a teacher or a friend or search on the Internet.
A good way to consolidate your knowledge and exam technique is to do timed exam questions.
Use mark schemes to find out what an examiner is looking for.
Ask your teacher to do a paper analysis on Results Plus for last year’s cohort to inform your revision process.
Consult your teacher for handy tips on what to look out for in the exam – it’s never too late to learn something new.
Your teachers are very hard working and full of creative ideas for getting you to learn your specification but it will still be them that get told off if you do not reach your potential. So do it for them if not for you.
Exam questions are a good way to find out what you do or don’t know.
Find a quiet space in your house or a library to try a timed paper.
Ask your teacher (or any other teacher of your choice) for help/advice whenever it is needed. Email them if need be during the holidays, they’ve got nothing better to do.
Some exam questions just require you to recall a technique and apply it but others require deeper thought. Attend a deeper thought seminar to broaden your brain.
Past papers are the future.
If you want to aim for the highest grades, try to answer questions which are harder than you would expect to meet (as exhibited by the Solomon papers).
Ask a teacher if there is something you don't understand.
Revision should always come after a period of concentrated vision - you cannot properly revise something you never properly learnt in the first place.
You can never really know that you understand something in Maths until you have answered some questions about it.
A good way to try to memorize a fact is to try to write a Top Tip about it.
If you find yourself stuck when revising, talk to a teacher or a friend or search on the Internet.
A good way to consolidate your knowledge and exam technique is to do timed exam questions.
Use mark schemes to find out what an examiner is looking for.
Ask your teacher to do a paper analysis on Results Plus for last year’s cohort to inform your revision process.
Consult your teacher for handy tips on what to look out for in the exam – it’s never too late to learn something new.
Your teachers are very hard working and full of creative ideas for getting you to learn your specification but it will still be them that get told off if you do not reach your potential. So do it for them if not for you.
Exam questions are a good way to find out what you do or don’t know.
Find a quiet space in your house or a library to try a timed paper.
Ask your teacher (or any other teacher of your choice) for help/advice whenever it is needed. Email them if need be during the holidays, they’ve got nothing better to do.
Some exam questions just require you to recall a technique and apply it but others require deeper thought. Attend a deeper thought seminar to broaden your brain.
Sitting the Test
Indices are the biggest mark loser (assuming you get them wrong).
Remember your acronyms (e.g. DMSIAD).
Don’t expect to use the quadratic formula in a non-calculator exam. Factorization is ever popular but for an answer in surd form you can't beat completing the square.
Tangents are parallel to curves (i.e. their gradients are the same) and normals are perpendicular.
If you can't answer a ‘show that’ question, you can still use the thing you were meant to show in subsequent parts of the same question.
She (or he) who is mistress (or master) of algebra is queen (or king) of A-Level Mathematics.
Show your method clearly.
If proving something, it's even more important to show every single step in the process.
Where possible, check your solutions using a different approach to the one that got you the answer(s) in the first place.
Read each question carefully to ensure you know exactly what is being requested.
Do not assume that a trigonometric quadratic equation must be factorisable; there are other ways of solving quadratic equations.
If you need to verify that a turning point lies between two values, differentiate and then substitute the lower and upper bounds to check that zero lies between their answers.
Remember your acronyms (e.g. DMSIAD).
Don’t expect to use the quadratic formula in a non-calculator exam. Factorization is ever popular but for an answer in surd form you can't beat completing the square.
Tangents are parallel to curves (i.e. their gradients are the same) and normals are perpendicular.
If you can't answer a ‘show that’ question, you can still use the thing you were meant to show in subsequent parts of the same question.
She (or he) who is mistress (or master) of algebra is queen (or king) of A-Level Mathematics.
Show your method clearly.
If proving something, it's even more important to show every single step in the process.
Where possible, check your solutions using a different approach to the one that got you the answer(s) in the first place.
Read each question carefully to ensure you know exactly what is being requested.
Do not assume that a trigonometric quadratic equation must be factorisable; there are other ways of solving quadratic equations.
If you need to verify that a turning point lies between two values, differentiate and then substitute the lower and upper bounds to check that zero lies between their answers.