How I Got an A* in Maths A-level (Cambridge Student)

hey everyone and welcome back to the channel if you're new here my name is roy and i just finished doing my second year physics here at cambridge now in this video i'm going to be going over how i got a star on a-level maps when i set my exams in the sum of 2019 now i did aqa for a-level maps and that was a new specification as well but that largely doesn't matter because for most of the new specification a-level maps the exam boards are almost all the same which also means that you can attempt past papers from other examples as well which is pretty neat anyway i'll be talking about my workflow for a-level maps then i'll go into some more like math specific resources which i use and then finally any advice which i have as always timestamps and links to anything i mentioned will be in the description down below so do check those out during

the video so i'll quickly outline my workflow for a-level maps but i do have a longer video explaining my workflow which should be linked above somewhere right now so anyway my first step was downloading the specification and then keeping on my google drive which i then used and checked through like regularly to make sure um as the content was being taught in class i could check for it and then maybe annotate any points which i didn't exactly understand and then ask my teachers about it and after like using the spec and i would have an idea where we were in the course then i would go to lesson and actually learn the content class so to kind of know what the next few lessons are going to be about because their specification tells you like the order in which your teachers are teaching the course to you and during the class i would like to learn the content make sure i'm understanding material and make notes during the lesson afterwards i would then start doing some practice questions so that was usually for any homework we were given but if i found myself struggling on like certain parts of the topic and i didn't understand it too well then like i would try to do more practice questions on it or try to find some videos online by searching on youtube now it doesn't matter too much about like finding youtube videos by specific a-level maps like youtubers or something and that's because maps are just maps so like if you're struggling to like i don't know use a chain reel or something it doesn't matter if you're watching an a-level video and using the chain reel or like a video by khan academy or something on using chain rule so like just type the topic name into youtube and you can usually find a good video explaining it to you and after doing like practice questions throughout the year funny content we were learning and also coming back to topics which i found difficult and making sure i could still do those we practice questions about two to three months before my exams i'd start doing a bunch of past papers and there aren't too many past papers for the new specification but there are specimen papers and there are papers from other boards as well so try doing some of these specimen papers and papers from motherboards and if you want to find the specimen papers and you can either do that by searching online and finding on some like dodgy websites but don't download any viruses or something or asking your teacher about it instead so when i was doing the past papers and the specimen papers then i would make notes of anything that i like usually got wrong or made mistakes on and then added it onto mistakes documents and i would come back to this mistakes document regularly throughout the year and also just before doing any practice tests or something so know exactly what mistakes i had that i had a habit of making so i could then develop a habit of also looking out for those mistakes so when it came to the real exam like i didn't have to worry too much about because like my brain was sort of active and i had i like made a habit of looking out for these mistakes so i made them less frequently so that was basically a summary of my a level maps workflow um

as for a few resources which i found to be really useful the first of which was youtube now like the best way to actually get better maps is by doing more questions but you actually have to learn the material first and textbooks for me and the textbooks we used in lessons i thought were pretty useless when it came to maths and they were just like badly written and sometimes i just didn't understand what the hell they were going on about and that's one point i want to mention like if you don't understand what's going on in textbook then don't think you're like stupid or something because in many cases i just didn't understand the textbook because it was just poorly written and unfortunately most a-level textbooks i think are quite poorly written so like don't force yourself to use a textbook if you're just not understanding it although the practice questions in textbook were pretty useful which i'll go in about later anyway for learning the content i used youtube mainly and that was just by searching any topics on youtube which i was struggling with and just finding any old video online so if i go to youtube then i can just search something like chain rule and then i can just find like videos by like nancy pi or something or like organic chemistry tutor or like khan academy on the chain rule and if i wanted more a level math specific videos then a good channel was tl maths now he has videos about uh all of a level maps so if you go to his playlists then you can find a super long playlist which covers the entire a-level map somewhere or i think it might be if you go to his website tl maps then it can be easier to find it there so if you go to a level maps then you can find the uh full a level then you can do either as then you can go to either as only or follow a level videos and then like just go to the topic so like if i wanted to go to algebra and functions then i'd go over here and then like functions itself and this is mapped according to the specification and then i can just find all the videos here now i didn't watch all his videos i watched like a few videos here and there because most of the time like i sort of understood what was going on in a lesson or an instant topic well enough but if i didn't particularly like my teacher's explanation of what was going on then i would come here but if you like self teaching yourself a level maths then this is probably a good place to like learn all the material from but i don't imagine anyone who actually has to like watch all his video videos um because like your teacher should be able to teach a good chunk of a little maps to you well so basically don't feel a temptation to watch all his videos despite how good they are like do practice questions and if you find yourself struggling with the topic or you don't send it too well and your teacher hasn't explained it well to you then come back to videos learn the content and then try the practice questions again now the next useful

resource was exam solutions so they also have some good videos so if i go to like a level then i can find uh like for say aqa even though the exam boards don't matter too much then for like mechanics i can go to tutorials and then just find a bunch of videos so like moments if i go to moments then i can like click on one of these and then just find some a video where he explains it also he goes through a lot of questions as well and he has some exam questions uh which you can attempt yourself and then view the solution for so it's a pretty good way to like work through the course and then watch him go through the solutions too now he just speak pretty slowly so i do watch his videos at like two or three time speed and if you want to watch a video at faster than two time speed on the computer and then i'd recommend downloading the extension video speed controller and then like learning the shortcuts uh and then like you can watch a video like free time speed now after

learning the material from using like online resources and learning in class then i would do some textbook questions and i generally found the end of chapter questions to be like particularly good because i usually taken from like past papers or like previous textbooks whereas the actual content learning the content from the textbook for me like i just didn't learn it from the textbook so i would do the end of chapter questions and to make sure i actually understood the material because the textbook i used or the teachers it gave us uh went from like the hard the easiest questions at the start of the end of chapter questions to the hardest so like do the final five questions and if i could do those textbook questions then i would i was just happy with the topic and if i couldn't then i'd like to jump to some middle questions or some easy questions to begin with rather than trying to do like every single end of chapter textbook question because one piece of advice i'm going to give later on is be intentional about what you're trying to improve and finally i would do

some past papers and i would find them on a website called physics and mouse tutor so if i go to past papers then go to a levels and go to like maths and then i can find a bunch of the new specification past papers and the old spec past papers as well so generally i would not touch the old spike past papers because the style of questions is pretty different and like some of the old spec past papers were really easy and they're just not that easy anymore although there are some good papers like the solomon papers which are again particularly challenging so if you go to like mechanics one which was an old spec module and then press like solomon papers and scroll down and you can find they are different levels of difficulty so i think the easiest solomon papers are like a and then like one of the hardest is like j so if you go to like the question paper then you can scroll down and see a bunch of these questions and then you can also mark them yourself so these are custom written papers with like i think the difficulty becoming harder the later you go in the alphabet so i would usually do like the last three um last three most difficult papers and i would like be pretty confident if i was able to get those questions right and if i couldn't then i'd like try to understand the mock scheme or think about the question or follow some of the device i have in my tackling difficult questions video which is linked above right now or even go to my teachers and ask them for some

help so that was the bulk of the resources i used there were youtube videos uh textbook end of chapter questions and also questions from like physics and math shooter for past papers of the old spec and the new spec but for the old spec i tried to do the solvent papers because they're particularly challenging and they're in the style of like new specification questions anyways

as for a few tips the first i'd recommend keep looking for explanations until you're satisfied so i remember like when i first encountered the second derivative in the first few weeks of a level or something then i just didn't get it or i just didn't understand why if the second derivative was like less than zero then it would be concave and if the second derivative was greater than zero then it would be convex i just didn't understand that and i made a flashcard on it and i wasn't too happy with the facts i just couldn't come to that conclusion myself so i remember asking my teacher about a few times and the explanation didn't make too much sense to me and i just like found some video online and explained it perfectly to me so like you want to be memorizing as little as possible enable maps especially when it comes to pure content so just keep looking for explanations until you're satisfied and this is especially important early on because it leads on to my second bit of advice learn until

you're happy with the material so keep asking questions to your teachers and if you come across any feelings of confusion like notice feelings of confusion within yourself when you're saying encountering a topic and then like deal with it as soon as possible because if you keep like saying oh i'll just come back to it when i'm doing revision or something like you will have gotten so used to that you will have just basically memorized it by accident and not actually understood it because when you expose something enough times then it can just lead you to like memorizing it instead of understanding it so when you are confused with some topic then try to understand it as soon as possible within like the first few days of or something and then next i'd

say be intentional about what you're trying to improve and get better at and this is a problem i noticed with many students like you also did a level maps in my school they just said to themselves oh i'm gonna do every single textbook question or like every single past paper or something topic test from like this website no like you should be intentional about what you're trying to improve because otherwise it leads to a lot of wasted motion which is a term i'm using here for anything that doesn't directly contribute to your goals like if you're really good at differentiation or using the chain wheel or something then it's just a waste of time for you to like practice that even more or like do a whole end of bed textual questions about it because you're just sort of wasting your time like think about which topics you're feeling the most confused on or like the most you struggle to send the most and then do questions specifically related to that and if you find the questions are too difficult then try to find some easier questions or try to learn the content or try to pinpoint what where your difficulty is actually lying rather than just saying to yourself i'll do every single textbook question and then i'll get better a level maps like you have to think and focus about what you're actually trying to improve and what you're struggling on the most and

if you're somewhat confused about what you're struggling on the most then i would recommend setting a five-minute timer so for many of like the issues i have i just deal with them in five minute timers which involves like setting a time on your phone for five minutes and then thinking to yourself a question like okay what are the things i'm finding the most difficult in a level mass right now and then forcing yourself to actually think about the issue for five minutes can be super useful because it's not too long and generally people don't think about the issue for more than 10 seconds so this can be one way of getting you to actually think and be intentional about what you're trying to improve on next i

would recommend developing an exam technique of knowing when to move on so there can be a mix of like difficult and easy questions for an exam and i remember for my actual a-level maths exam when i sent it in like summer 2019 um like some of the easy questions came up towards the end and they were like there were some difficult questions in the middle and there were many people who like sort of could didn't know when to give up or move on from the middle difficult question so they just missed an easy question in the end because the papers may not necessarily be in order from like easy to difficult for your exam board so my general rule was that if i could keep thinking of new solutions or keep finding new ways to tackle this problem then i would stick with the question but if i found myself like trying the same thing over and over again but i wasn't getting anywhere then the chances are i made a mistake but i just can't tell that is a mistake in the moment which means i have to come back to it so many cases like i would put a little star or asterisk next to a question so i would move on to a different question and then like say when i finish a paper or i finished all the questions which i haven't start then i would come back to the start questions and then usually i would see some mistake in my attempt and then like fix that mistake and then be able to finish a question so storing questions and then coming back to them later on can be really useful if you find yourself trying the same technique or thing over and over again because chances are you made a mistake but you're so stuck and focused on that question in particular that you just can't find a mistake until you come back

to it and my final recommendation is not to procrastinate from hard topics so if you're learning a particularly hard topic in class don't just give up and say oh i'll come back to like later on in the year or something because you will have been exposed to enough times throughout the year and that you will just end up forgetting why your misunderstanding is a lie and you'll end up memorizing it instead of actually understanding it if you come back to it frequently enough so i'd make an effort to understand things as they came up and like within the next few days if i just wasn't particularly happy because i knew the next time i come back to it i just have to revise myself um because you're going to have to understand something at some point so you might as well understand it when the teacher is explaining it to you or when you're learning it in that weekend lesson rather than saying that you will understand it two months before the exam because things are just gonna pile up and you're gonna have to understand like 20 different topics for the first time and understanding things just takes time now it's quite difficult and you're not going to have time to answer like 20 different topics for the first time so understand things as you're going along because you'll be grateful for yourself

later on but yeah that's basically how i approached a little maths and i hope you're able to take away some useful advice from that if you're interested in how i studied for like all my subjects and the precise details of my like studying techniques and stuff then i have a playlist called studying effectively for gcse's a levels which has a bunch of useful videos so do check that if you have time and i guess for now i'll see you next time bye