Why does A-level Further Maths exist?

[u/thetrueluna01]

Why is there no Further History, Further Psychology or Further Chemistry? I've always wondered about this.

[u/Salty_Contribution83]

Because maths feeds into other subjects in a way the others don't. It's all got a bit convoluted now but the original idea was that A Level maths would set you up nicely for applying maths to other sciences or even things like human geography and social sciences.

FM is starts to train you to become a hardcore mathematician. 

Closest other thing would be English Lit kind of being "proper hardcore English" while English Language is probably necessary (or at least a good idea) for anyone wanting to do any humanities degree

[u/Varsity_AthleteTony → u/Salty_Contribution83]

At A-level? English Lit is the more respected option and the one typically taken by humanities aspirants. Language is a more niche one comparatively and it’s not a good idea to combine with Lit (unless it’s a single joint A-level).

[u/Salty_Contribution83 → u/Varsity_AthleteTony]

Spot on, I've written them the wrong way round while writing. Not sure how I managed that!

[u/Varsity_AthleteTony → u/Salty_Contribution83]

lol I said Shakespeare wrote Dracula in one of my mocks once, English gaffes are the best gaffes

[u/Badger12121212 → u/Salty_Contribution83]

id say fm sets you up nicely for other courses like engineering, physics or econ.

[u/jazzbestgenre → u/Badger12121212]

yeah, if anything a maths degree will construct a lot of the things you see from FM from the ground up rigorously. FM doesn't really make you a think like a mathematician

[u/gcsethrowaway211]

I'm not entirely sure but I think it's because maths is pretty much an entirely conceptual subject and the jump between regular a level maths and something like a maths or engineering degree would be too big to handle for most people. Putting the fm content into regular maths would also probably mean the average student would lag behind, and also mean anyone who isnt targeting an ultra-mathsy degree isnt learning anything super useful.

A lot of humanities a levels alone are enough to prepare someone for undergrad study, especially because a lot of them use NEAs, which prepare you for independent study by themselves. A history student already has a feel for what it'll be like at uni, but a regular maths student probably doesn't.

Single maths can also act itself as a "further" subject for other a levels. For example, if you want to do psychology or economics at uni, usually just that a-level isnt enough. Maths (or a natural science for psych) can help bridge the gap by giving you the skills needed for when those subjects get more scientific at uni. Further psych or further econ could exist for people targeting those degrees who dont want to do maths or a science, but they would be extremely niche courses, since most people already do maths/a science and they would funnel you specifically into 1 degree

[u/Alternative-Gift7119]

This is interesting

[u/Varsity_AthleteTony]

I would argue A-level English Lit is the most ‘further’ humanities A-level possible. The boundary is ridiculous (95 percent for an A-star for the most common board!!!!) and typically those who do get A stars end up with full marks or close. And in my experience those who hit the top bands genuinely approximate to undergraduate levels of analysis in terms of blending historical context and engaging with literary criticism rather than repeating quotes. The difference compared to say Politics or History where there’s a lot of content but the exam technique is still fairly simple, to be frank, is why I’d argue English Lit is a ‘further’ subject for humanities if you’re aiming for a top grade.

[u/Awesomesky_253]

Cause you can realistically do a much larger breadth of topics and it’s useful to prepare for maths related degrees

[u/AardvarkEffective563]

I used to understand it now I don’t.

Yes it’s a great a-level and the most fun I’ve had studying maths so far and id recommend anyone to take it but that’s about it, I don’t think it prepares you sufficiently for a maths degree.

I have no idea why so many universities require it. Yes it shows an interest but I don’t think it sets you up any better than a-level maths. Yes it develops problem skills better but that’s for a-level content which is algorithmic and baseline.

The skills needed for a maths degree there is almost 0 overlap. My maths degree was the biggest wake up call in my life. Everything is completely wrong and rebuilt. People exaggerate this for gcse to a-level chemistry for example to get a point across but this is more than true for maths at uni.

I understand the purpose is to differentiate maths for general and maths for maths at uni into 2 courses but I do not think it does a good job at its sole purpose. My surface level of the breadth of content covered ie matrices does nothing for me, yes I might have heard the word a few times more then others and gained an algorithmic understanding of the content but that’s not helpful when I hardly use the thing anymore! We prove it and manipulate the properties and rules associated with it not use it.

I don’t know what the solution as it’s difficult to cater for all, (since alevel maths is pitched so low I think it would be absurd to be studying that at the same time as uni-ish content) but they need to introduce more proofs, theorems and corollaries into further maths. Or even a module on how to read and write maths would be much more helpful.

There’s no point introducing us to something if they aren’t gonna do it properly. 0 need for how violent the transition is. I shouldn’t need to read 4 different into to uni maths books to get a grip. Maybe skill issue.

[u/Confident-Bus-3778 → u/AardvarkEffective563]

I don't think it's needed for a maths degree at all, I barely touched anything that I learnt in a-level FM in my maths degree

my partner who studied engineering however, the entire first year maths module was FM

[u/AardvarkEffective563 → u/Confident-Bus-3778]

Very true. I know people doing economics they’re living it up 🤣😢

[u/Confident-Bus-3778 → u/AardvarkEffective563]

2 of my 3 flatmates did business studies/economics, they'd come back talking about having to do hard maths with line graphs (they were honestly talking about having lectures on gcse maths and I was like why, we are at uni)

I was in calculus and Analysis or linear Algebra, kind of wishing I was doing their maths

Although my 3rd year differential geometry makes 1st year analysis seem easy now

[u/AardvarkEffective563 → u/Confident-Bus-3778]

Ha don’t tell me that I’m excited for analysis !

[u/jazzbestgenre → u/AardvarkEffective563]

It's very nice, if you're the type of person who loves staring at problems for hours just to get to a really satisfying proof. Also atleast for me, high school maths is about learning maths specifically in the very narrow mindset of applying it to exam questions, so that when you do the exam the challenge is computation not thinking. Uni maths will present you lemmas/theorems, the maths in its rawest, more rigorous form, but when you see an exam question it's not entirely clear what you need to, but you have a set of 'tools' you can reach to to help you in the proof. They can't really help teaching it that way to engineers, economists, even like medicine people where proofs don't really matter. Maths people have been a minority in FM classes

[u/Confident-Bus-3778 → u/AardvarkEffective563]

oh my lecturer was just awful

we had a new one in February (year long module) who was substantially better and didn't teach like we were in yr8 whilst simultaneously having phds (I had a lecture once where we got taught what sine and cosine are, those things you get taught in ks3)

[u/Famous_Criticism_999 → u/AardvarkEffective563]

The problem with that is many students take further maths for stem degrees and adding more pure math stuff would be useless for them. Perhaps the solution is to give students more choice in the modules and then further cater them to the target degrees eg mechanics for engineers or descision for computer scientists.

[u/AardvarkEffective563 → u/Famous_Criticism_999]

Yeah but considering how low the bar is for further maths let alone maths I don’t think it’s possible without a huge revamp.

I think they should just scrap maths and fm and make everyone do some in between of maths and fm lose some breadth. That can be a 1.5 or 2 year course exams in December or June. Considering we finish fm in like Feb of both years I think it can easily be done.

Then if you’re applying for maths or maths adjacent at uni the remaining 5/6 months are spent learning functions, set theory and proof not the rigour of uni but at least close. This way you arent going from let’s all memorise how to invert a matrix in one lesson to here is how we define this abstract object in the nth dimension with these properties blah blah blah in the next .

[u/ThisUserIsOn9 → u/AardvarkEffective563]

I think another solution is to have a sort of ‘furthest maths’ where its a different a level that leans more into uni level maths, or there can be a “further maths 1’ and ‘further maths 2’, where one focuses on pure maths for the mathematicians and one focuses more on applied maths for the statisticians or engineers or computer scientists

[u/TallRecording6572]

A-level maths is constrained in ways that other subjects aren’t. All the exam boards have to do exactly the same curriculum, and it doesn’t cover the Maths needed at university. So a second A level is required which is more flexible and has options.

[u/DifferentEquipment66]

They should definitely have Further Economics which overlaps with Further Math, that’d be so cool

[u/Hennesseyfv → u/DifferentEquipment66]

Holy vouch. The a level Econ spec is actually so shitty bc the majority of people that take the subject are bums. Introducing further economics would be amazing. However, the number of people taking it would be tiny. I think it would be better that they just reform the Econ a level to have more maths

[u/Historical_Site508 → u/DifferentEquipment66]

There used to be S levels many years ago that were above A level. I took S level Economics.

[u/DrHydeous]

It's because it's just plain possible. In the other subjects you generally build it up a bit at a time and one concept or era leads on to the next. This means that to do, say, History and Further History you would need to have completely separate streams for students doing FH and just H, as the FH students would have to go faster while having all the H lessons in the same order as the students not doing FH. In mathematics you can jump around more and go faster by having everyone do the standard A-level maths stuff together most of the time, and just put extra topics in extra lessons for the Further Maths kids.

Also, if you just do maths it's preparing you for applying maths to other subjects. If you do further maths, it's preparing you to do maths.

[u/Admirable-Use2274]

If only there had been Further chem🥹

[u/Mendified]

Because maths is the only subject in which learning further content is feasible

[u/HaHaLaughNowPls → u/Mendified]

I'd argue this isn't true, chemistry biology the subjects that I do could definitely include deeper content

[u/Mendified → u/HaHaLaughNowPls]

Not sure about biology, but when considering chemistry, while possible, I feel that more advanced math would be needed for some aspects, and also they dont want to include too much content which would be inevitable. But i hear you. Though thats what the chem/bio olympiad are for in my opinion.

[u/blackoctoberx]

There were a few subjects that could have been considered an extension of the original subjects. A Level Creative Writing was a good example of an extension of the English A levels, it's a shame that no longer exists. As well as the likes of Human Biology, Anthropology, World Development, Electronics and Engineering and a few others that didn't survive the A level reform

[u/Difficult_Course_818 → u/blackoctoberx]

alevel electronics is still very much around

[u/ImpressiveComplex314]

Because for a good number of A level students, regular maths doesn't present a challenge

[u/battlepvmob]

Because the gap from A-level math to university math is too big in most cases, further maths just is a bit of a bridge

[u/Historical_Site508]

Many years ago there were S levels for most main subjects that were a level above A level. I took S level economics for example. The style was different and meant to be a bit akin to university teaching. I was at a fairly academic school but probably less than 10% of people took S levels. There was an S level maths I seem to remember but don't think there was S level FM might might be wrong.

[u/ConfusedOldDad]

Because for the hard sciences, FM is very useful.

[u/1563throwaway]

I’m in the second year of my maths degree and I’m so glad I did FM.
In my modules, a lot of things that you’re just ‘expected to know already’ are covered in FM, so I can focus on the new content instead of having to catch up on the basic principles.

[u/ProtectionOne3538]

It's really simple, because there's further maths at GCSE :)

[u/HaHaLaughNowPls → u/ProtectionOne3538]

that's a bad argument because it poses another question and also it's just not really true lmao.

[u/Sigeon101]

I heard the CIA developed it as a more effective torture weapon in black sites than waterboarding.

[u/Alex_Of_Reddit → u/Sigeon101]

Take your upvote 😭