The Larmor Society

IA Maths A

Maths A is the option for people who didn't do further maths at A-Level. The main difference between Maths A and B is that in Maths A goes through fewer things than Maths B during the course of the year. This means that people who do Maths A have less choice in the exams as to what questions to do, but that's about all it means. Unfortunately, Maths A starts off the year with vectors, which personally, I wasn't great at (to put it mildly!), but don't lose heart - the rest of the course isn't that bad! Also, Maths A finishes with matrices, which are wonderful compared to everything else you will have been doing...

Another point about Maths is that during the lectures, no-one will go through 'how' to do questions as they did (at least they did for me) at A-level. The lectures are there to give you the 'tools' which you then apply to figure out the questions for yourself. This can sometimes be a little daunting, but fear not, that's what your supervisor is there for, and I found it useful to insist on some examples to the questions being worked out in front of me.

Also, Maths entails cunning Examples Classes, of which you get a few a term, usually one at the end of each part of the course, and as the name suggests, during the Examples Class, you will go through examples of the questions... However, you do have a chance to try them out yourself beforehand. Supervision work will also consist of examples sheets/problem sheets, and usually there will be a few problems that you can't do, but don't worry about this, they are set to stretch you, and you can ask about them in your next supervision.