Applied Maths

Consonata

Sorry if this has been discussed before, I'm just looking for more up to date advice on it.

At the moment I am doing 8 Subjects, 7 in School, 1 Outside.

English
Irish
Maths
French
DCG
Biology
Physics
Music (Outside)

I'm doing this Music Correspondence course with Dara Black as I live in the West and I couldn't travel to Dublin every week for extra classes.

With these subjects, would it be worthwhile me trying to do Applied Maths outside of school? I like Maths, and I am doing Physics, but I haven't got a Teacher. I would be getting help from my Dad a lot but I would be mostly working on my own on it. I'd like to have a safety net because I am doing Ordinary Irish and I need a lot of points for my course. People who are doing or have done Applied Maths, how long does it take to do the course and is it very difficult?

Ompala

Recommend reading through these as you will probably find all the answers you are looking for regards workload, time etc.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056614769

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057233002

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=90586999

Tesco TripleChicken

If you like maths (higher level would probably be necessary) and physics, then Applied Maths shouldn't be too hard. I only started towards the end of 6th year and didn't have time and ended up not sitting the exam, but the 2 chapters I did were easy enough it just takes practice. I'd say if you start in 5th year you'll have no problem with it, especially if you do higher maths/physics. It also has one of the highest percentage of A's in the LC

japester

If you have the spare time and enjoy problem-solving, then you definitely ought to give it a try. You could dip your toes into it over the remainder of the summer break by trying out the uniform acceleration section of the course and trying out a number of past exam questions on it (Q1 on the paper). In terms of maths, this question normally requires just a knowledge of linear and quadratic equations, although on occasion you might need to use differentiation in order to find a minimum value for instance. If you fare out well with this section of the course, then you will have a big head start should you decide to proceed with it. There is an excellent resource available for free on thephysicsteacher website and you can get many other resources for free also. If you can master say 9 of the 10 topics then you should have plenty of ammunition for achieving a very high score in the exam. As was mentioned already, the percentage of A's has always been very high, and that is no doubt because it is often the very strongest of students mathematically that take it up (plus the decent amount of overlap with honours physics too). There is a perception that applied maths is a tricky subject and that is justified to a certain extent, because you do need to be able to apply what you have learned to possibly new scenarios that you have not encountered before in your studies but the fundamentals are relatively easy to understand, once you have patience with yourself and keep trying out questions. Best of luck to you whatever you decide anyways :-)

Consonata

Where would be good places to get resources in terms of starting the course. I have some playlists etc. Ill update the original post with stuff. If there is anything you guys could contribute, I would be grateful as well as Id imagine anybody else doing Applied Maths.

rainbowtrout

There is a text book. Applied Maths by Oliver Murphy. You could just buy that and start working your way through it. Download the exam papers and when you have done a section, tackle some of the exam questions on it. Rinse and repeat. Course is fairly old, so there are loads of past papers to practice with.

Consonata

Thanks! Is there anybody else taking Applied Maths next year? How are you doing it, Outside of school? Inside School? on your own?

lauracarroll

I just sat Applied Maths this year and loved it! The exam was a toughie but otherwise it's a really great subject. If your dad can do the maths I'd definitely go for it - it's just very difficult if you've nobody to check for a mistake. Applied Maths is the sort of subject that you can do a whole question right and a tiny slip in signs can result in an answer that's totally implausible. I say go for it, if you get to halfway through sixth year and it's simply too hard you can drop it, that's the beauty of doing a subject outside school.

Raspberry Fileds

lauracarroll wrote: »

Applied Maths is the sort of subject that you can do a whole question right and a tiny slip in signs can result in an answer that's totally implausible.

I don't entirely agree with that chacterisation, but, for the record, the marking scheme is very generous and gives the majority of marks for the setup.

Eurovisionmad

Raspberry Fileds wrote: »

I don't entirely agree with that chacterisation, but, for the record, the marking scheme is very generous and gives the majority of marks for the setup.

+1 on this, maybe 3 marks out of 50 per question will go for the correct answer or 1 if it's a particularly hard question, it's all in the working out, if you carry over the wrong sign you're liable to lose one mark or a mistake loses 3.

I would say that there's no point overstretching yourself with 9 subjects, concentrate on your best!