How to Get An A* in A-Level Maths

Nathania

Medical Student

A-level Maths can be a challenging A-level, particularly if you’re aiming for top grades. This article goes into 7 key tips that you can use to help you get an A*.

1. Stay organised

Staying organised in A-level Maths from the beginning will help to ensure you don’t fall behind and can stay on top of all the content to be prepared for the exam. Having a timetable is a good way to stay organised as it gives you a visual way to keep track of all the topics that you have covered and how much time you have spent going over them. When you’re set work from your teacher ensure that you do all the questions that have been set, particularly if in class you didn’t manage to finish all the questions. This is because textbooks often have questions going from easiest to hard questions. So if you’re not completing all the questions you may find that you’re not covering the harder questions, which are the questions that you need to answer to get your A*.

2. Identify your weaknesses

Knowing your weaknesses in A-level maths means that you can tackle them well in advance of the exams. There are always topics that we struggle with understanding more than others. When you come across these topics try to take note of them and spend more time going over these topics. Also do more practice questions on these topics, which will increase your confidence.

3. Utilise A-level Maths resources

It’s likely that you will have an A-level Maths textbook that your teacher will have recommended or given you and this is a good resource to start with. However, there are other resources that you can use if you find that you’re not understanding how a textbook has explained a particular concept. YouTube is a great resource for detailed explanations behind maths problems. For example, Exam Solutions gives breakdowns of exam papers and their methods on how to tackle different questions. Physicsandmathstutor has a question bank of previous past papers that you can print off to practice.

4. Understand the reasoning behind the solution

In A-level maths, it’s important to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. The more difficult questions are designed to catch out students who have just memorised the technique. Therefore if you don’t understand the reasoning behind the concept you will struggle to tackle these questions. When studying a topic, ask questions until you’re happy with the explanation and you actually understand. This way during the exam when you see the concept in a more difficult format, as you understand why you’re doing that technique, you will still be able to tackle the question.

5. Practice A-level Maths past papers from all exam boards

Maths is maths no matter the exam board. So try practice questions from all the exam boards. This will expose you to the same maths concepts but asked in different ways. This will help you become more confident in applying the concepts and identifying when they should be used in a question. You can also use practice questions from the old A-levels if they cover the content which you are currently learning.

6. Work on your exam technique

There are some questions on your A-level Maths exams which are targeted at the A* students. To have adequate time to tackle these questions, you want to ensure that you are able to get through the rest of the paper and aren’t getting stuck on easier questions. Practicing papers will help you improve your time management.

Also, you want to be able to figure out when it’s best to move on from a question that you are stuck on. If you find that you are going round in circles on a particular question and are doing the same technique repeatedly without being able to identify a mistake, then you may want to move on. This will mean that you don’t waste time on questions. This way you can tackle more questions and gain as many marks as possible to get your A*.

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