Mathematics

Course summary

Mathematics describes the underlying structures of the world around us. It is used to model and solve problems in almost every area of society: from population dynamics in Biology, projectile motion in Physics, and rates of reaction in Chemistry; to financial models in Economics and statistical analysis in Social Sciences such as Geography and Psychology. Mathematics therefore makes a great combination with almost any choice of subjects. Mathematics is both a worthwhile subject in itself and a subject greatly valued beyond school. While it has a reputation for being difficult, it also has considerable market value. It has even been suggested that students with A-level Mathematics qualifications can expect to command higher salaries (10% on average) than their peers! As well as being very important for careers involving a scientific background such as engineering, medicine, veterinary sciences and biological sciences, Mathematics is also highly desirable in such varied career routes as Business, Economics, Computing, Sociology, Psychology and Geography. The pure content includes proofs, algebra and functions, coordinate geometry, sequences and series, trigonometry, exponentials and logarithms, calculus, numerical methods and vectors. Pure Mathematics at A-level is largely algebraic. It extends students’ knowledge of methods and techniques for solving equations and investigating graphs. The applied part of the course includes Statistics and Mechanics in equal proportion. Statistics involves techniques for analysing and interpreting numerical data, calculating probabilities and using statistical models such as the Normal distribution to test hypotheses. Mechanics covers kinematics, forces Newton’s Laws, and moments. There is some overlap between these topics and the Physics topics Forces and motion, and Forces, fields and energy.