1. Revise your trigonometry, logarithms and surds, Remainder Factor Theorem
These are all essential concepts and skills which you have to bring over from O level Math to be able to solve many questions. You will need to be proficient in trigonometric manipulations applying compound formulae, double angle formulae and factor formulae to solve many questions. Remainder Factor Theorem is useful for solving equations involving complex roots.
2. Once you obtain your Graphic Calculator, you need to get yourself familiarised with it as soon as possible.
You can expect the steps involved in getting to your answer for A Level Math to be much longer and more complicated. Graph sketching is also commonly tested where you may not know the shape of the graph by yourself Sometimes, you also cannot solve the equations or inequality manually. These issues can be addressed with the use of the Graphic Calculator easily. Hence, getting yourself familiarised with your Graphic Calculator functions is important ,so that you can be more efficient and get to your answer more quickly especially when the questions does not require you to find the exact value.
3. Getting yourself mentally prepared for the following:
For Pure Math, Vectors and Complex Numbers are two of the topics that many students struggle with because of the sheer amount of equations and formulas that you have to remember. In addition, you have to know exactly what approach to use for a specific question e.g. drawing a vector triangle and applying cosine rule when the question does not explicitly state so.
Another challenging aspect is that questions are now moving towards real world context problems. These questions look similar to your primary school problem sum questions where you have to first understand the context of the problem before you can apply your mathematical concepts and skills to solve them. Many students stumble because they are unable to form the appropriate equations or solve for the wrong variables.
Nevertheless, there are still many standard manipulation procedures to be followed for the questions so do not be discouraged as you can eventually get there with practice and proper guidance.
In addition, Statistics is a major component for both H1 and H2 Math. You will be exposed to concepts like binomial distribution, normal distribution, sampling, hypothesis testing, correlation and regression which are important concepts required for many of the University courses in order for you to analyse data.
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