Further Mathematics extends your mathematical knowledge beyond the A Level in Mathematics. Further Mathematics is a great A Level for those students who have an intrinsic love of the subject or who wish to study mathematics or other courses with a high maths content, such as Physics or Computer Science at degree level.
During the first year of the course, Core Pure Mathematics will comprise half of the content, with the other half being distributed between the applied mathematics section of the course, to include Statistics and Decision Mathematics. Statistics further develops the learning of statistics for the mathematics A Level. Decision Mathematics however will be entirely new. This is an exciting area of mathematics, which examines algorithms and among other things, considers problems associated with networks (maps etc.) A Satnav finds the most efficient route between two points and decision maths looks at the algorithms that underpin such operations.
The second year of the course will have the same content as the first year, but again, the mathematics becomes more complex and the problems more sophisticated.
For the A Level, there are four 1½ hour exam papers, each equally worth 25% of the overall marks available. These four papers will be sat at the end of the two year course. The exams will be two Core Pure Mathematics papers, one Further Statistics paper and one Decision Mathematics paper.
Students must answer all questions. Calculators can be used in the assessments.