Hello everyone, it’s me again.
How time flies and the ‘A’ Level H1 Maths / H2 Maths papers are now upon us.
Though I’m very busy with my classes with just days to go, I would like to take the time to say something (after I’ve been ‘poked’ (Facebook-style) by my sister) to those of you taking your H1/H2 Maths papers this week.
Get Your Basic Concepts/Techniques Right!
Before you enter your exam hall, you should be familiar and confident with the following pure maths basic concepts and techniques (without relying on any formula sheet):
- Completing the square/factorisation of cubic functions
- Basic trigonometric ratio values & *trigonometric identities (these are assumed knowledge/topics for self-study)
- Concepts of sine rule, cosine rule, similar triangles, Pythagoras’ Theorem
- *Inequalities (yes, I know some of you hate this)
- *Partial fractions
- *Geometry & locus concepts
- *Formulae of area & volume of various basic geometrical shapes
- *Doing substitutions correctly
Topical Groupings
For Paper 1, some topics are usually lumped together in questions in the following groupings:
- Graphs/Transformation/Inequalities/Functions
- Differentiation & their applications (N.B. make sure your get your differentiation right as subsequent part(s) i.e. rate of change, maxima/minima etc. depend on it)
- Integration (*by substitution, by parts, area or volume)
- *AP/GP/Summation/Mathematical Induction/Recurrence
- *Vectors (vector equations of straight lines vs the (chim) planes)
- *Complex numbers (roots & Argand diagrams)
- *Differential Equations (Separation of Variables, Applications)
Final Round of Practice
I’m not an advocate of spotting questions but if you’re taking H2 Maths and are already sufficiently well-prepared, here are some stuff to practice for a final round:
- *Parametric equations (tangent/normal or area of integration)/ Maclaurin’s expansion
- *Solving system of linear equations (using the RREF function in your GC)
- *Inequalities (incl. modulus functions)
- *Vectors (vector equations of straight lines is easier to score compared to planes!)
- *Complex numbers (practice TYS questions – don’t be stressed by your prelim questions)
- *Curve sketching (basic curves, circles, parabolas, hyperbolas, oblique asymptotes etc.)
- *Using your GC to perform sketching, locate roots, compute areas etc. (a quick run-through to boost your confidence of its keystrokes/usage)
- *Recurrence (familiarise your GC‘s SEQUENTIAL MODE to input recurrence equations)
*H2 topics
At this point, I would like to say that no matter how tough your prelim papers were, please be confident that most ‘A’ Level questions are ‘do-able’ PROVIDED you are firm and confident in your concepts.
Even if you’ve always found certain topics to be tough, remember that there are still a lot of easy marks to collect everywhere in the paper – so don’t give up just because you can’t do part (a) i.e. even if you can’t prove (a), you can still quote the prove directly for part (b).
Therefore, even if you can’t do the plane portion of the vector question, you should still be able to do the straight line portion. And even if you can’t prove the differential equation, you should instinctively use the proof to complete the integration (via Separation of Variables) in the subsequent part 😉
Last but not least, like what my sister has been telling her O Level students, please follow the 5 Cs and read the questions Calmly, Carefully and Correctly before answering them, lookout for Clues contained within them, and do those which you are more Confident in solving first.
Good Luck!
