Talk:A-level Mathematics

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Statistics 2
hey, never edited anything on wiki before, but thought id offer an example our teacher used for hypothesis testing that has helped me understand it better (i find stats hard to grasp). it might help with the S2 section, i don't know. anyway here it is:

An Example
If a man is tried for murder, he is taken to be innocent until proven guilty. If we find a nike shoe print at the scene of the crime and he has a shoe that matches, then we have some evidence he is guilty. But then we ask, if he is innocent what would the chances be of finding a nike shoe print there. The answer is; pretty likely as many people have nike shoes. Therefore the evidence we have is NOT significant enough to say he is guilty. If on the other hand, we found DNA that matched the man's DNA at the scene of the crime, we would ask the same question as before: if the man is innocent, what are the chances of us finding DNA matching his at the scene of the crime? - LOW. This evidence is significant and we can reject his innocence.

In this case the null hypothesis, H0, was that the man was innocent. The hypothesis to be tested, H1 was that he was guilty. With the first piece of evidence, we found that the shoe print was not significant evidence for his guilt as its is quite likely to happen if he was innocent. Clearly convicting the man because of this evidence is ridiculous, it is not significant enough. If the evidence were to change (for example to a size nine nike shoe print, which the man has) and keep changing such that it became more significant, and we were to keep asking what the probability was of finding that evidence if he is innocent, eventually we would say finding the evidence is unlikely enough that the man's innocence can be rejected. This probability is called the significance level. If the probability of finding the evidence is less than the significance level then we can reject the null hypothesis (i.e. the man is not innocent). As in the case of finding the DNA; the probability of finding this evidence if the man WERE guilty is very low and is below the significance level. What you will notice is that in each case we have assumed the null hypothesis is true and asked questions about how likely it is to find the evidence we have. The significance level depends on the given situation and how sure we want to be before we reject H0. In the case of a criminal trial the significance level need to be very low as convicting the wrong person has serious implications, in less important situations, the significance level can be higher. Quantitatively, significance levels are normally 5% for S2 exams.

Binomial Expansion C1
I've noticed that there is no section on binomial expansion in the C1 section of this textbook. I currently don't have my Maths textbook on me so I can't start the section myself, but I am going to create a link to it so that I or any other contributor may get back to it

Noted will correct. This is in Core 2 not Core 1 per OCR syllabus. Keytotime 18:06, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Summation of A Series FP1
if alpha is a solution isnt it just a number? if so how do you get sum of alpha because i think that is what that greek letter is for.

Which Module are you taking about? Ex. Core Three: Three More Trigonometric Function? Keytotime 22:22, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/A-level_Mathematics/FP1 its fp1

The series will converge to the number α. Some series will be equal to a finite number in this case the number can be written as alpha. For example the series can be 1.565, 1.564, 1.563, 1.562, 1.561, 1.560, 1.560. Then we can say that alpha is equal to 1.560. So the series is equal to 1.560. I will right the module this week. Keytotime 18:01, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Let α,β and γ be the roots of ax3 + bx2 + cx + d = 0. sum of α is -b/a. what is the equation of the series?? Also have you heard of a technique called method of differences? And i have added some stuff to C1 simultaneous equations. Hope u don't mind

Your edits were done in the solutions to the practice problem section. The module itself is found at A-level_Mathematics/C1/Equations. I appreciate the attempt at help though. In FP1 the equation of the roots is a special case of Newton's Identities.Keytotime 20:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind helping out, but my knowledge of maths is limited to C1, C2, S1 and C3 and parts of C4 and M1 and i don't do further maths in school and my exam board is edexcel i think. Give me some links to topics not quite finished/started and i will do my best to help.

The whole Core 4 is not finished and M1 is only partially done. On the first page of the book there is a link to the OCR specification so that you know what is expected. Thank you for your help. Keytotime 22:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

On the specification for M1 it does not mention any of the terminology used in mechanics but I am pretty sure the candidates will need to know the definitions of words such as smooth elastic, etc.

Also can you tell me what is "method of differences"? and could you offer a dumbed down version of the explanation of newtons identities here please.I am sorry I don't understand your previous explanations but I do not learn further maths in school.

For an explanation see [A-level_Mathematics/FP1/Roots_of_Polynomial_Equations]. In M1 make any changes that you feel are necessary. I will review them and help you out. Also you should create a user name so that your edits can be more easily tracked and be less suspicious. Keytotime 13:36, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

i have added a example to Equilibrium in m1 and explain how to work out the answer.

I'm not very good at finding things to add im better at adding things that im told to add lol. i added method of differences to summations of series but im not sure about the explanation

Editing
How do I draw images like triangles when editing pages?

Use inkscape and upload the svg's. Keytotime 17:27, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Year 1 and Year 2
dividing the courses into AS and A2 is wrong as it is to the discretion of the school at which you take them which courses you do in which year, my school does them in a totally different order, and for that reason I think they should just be listed.


 * I agree: I think it would be better to divide the courses by the sections of the syllabus that they cover --ComradePenguinMonster (discuss • contribs) 07:54, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Learn to use capital letters at the beginning of your sentences!@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ You should invest your time in some English education. Thanks. Either that or you are plain lazy.

OCR MEI Provision
I will be updating the OCR MEI Provision that A-Level Mathematics books currentely has here. I will be doing this in my spare time around revision for exams, so updates will be less than frequent. Any other contributions welcomed.