A-Level Maths
Online A-Level Maths tutoring
A-Level Maths for Years 12 and 13, including students taking it alongside Chemistry and Biology for a medical or dental application.
Where A-Level Maths sits in a medical application
Maths is not usually required for medicine or dentistry. Chemistry is, and Biology nearly always is, which means Maths is the third subject for a large share of applicants rather than a requirement.
That has a practical consequence worth saying plainly: it is the subject most likely to be the one that drops a grade, because it is the one getting the least attention. For a student holding an AAA offer, a B in Maths is as costly as a B in Chemistry.
It is also the subject that quietly carries the other two. The 20% of Chemistry marks that are mathematical, and the statistics in Biology, both get easier for a student doing A-Level Maths.
What the exam asks of them
On the major boards it is three papers of two hours, 100 marks each, equally weighted, all sat at the end of Year 13. Two are pure mathematics; the third is statistics and mechanics. A calculator is allowed throughout, and the large data set is examinable in the statistics section.
The jump from GCSE is the real problem
Students arrive from a 7, 8 or 9 at GCSE and find the first term of Year 12 harder than anything before it. The reason is not difficulty of content but density: topics that took a fortnight at GCSE take three lessons, and a gap left unfixed in week three is still there in June.
Algebraic fluency is the usual culprit. Nearly everything in Pure rests on confident manipulation, and a student who is slow at it is slow at all of it. We diagnose that first, because fixing it lifts every topic at once.
Where the marks go
- Method marks. As at GCSE, correct working scores even with a wrong final answer. Students who write only answers lose whole questions to one slip.
- Pace. 100 marks in 120 minutes leaves little thinking time. Students who are accurate but slow finish six or seven marks short of what they knew.
- Proof and "show that". Marked on the reasoning, not the conclusion, and the step students most often skip is the one being examined.
- Mechanics. Routinely the weakest section, because it is taught last and practised least.
How we teach it
- Timed questions from the first lesson. Students who only ever work untimed are practising a different skill from the one being examined.
- Work set between lessons, and marked. An hour a week changes very little on its own. The work in between is where the grade moves.
- A full paper under exam conditions every four weeks. Same timing, same silence, no notes. The score is recorded so progress is a number.
- Written progress to parents every month. What was covered, what the scores were, what we are working on next.
- Groups capped at five, or one-to-one if that suits better.
Start with the free diagnostic
Every student begins the same way: one full hour under exam conditions, marked against the real mark scheme, followed by a written summary of where the marks are going and what we would do about it. It costs nothing, and the assessment is yours to keep whether or not you carry on.