http://www.maccer.co.uk/keyskills
GCSE and A-Level Overview, link to a series of mostly short videos covering topics in brief
This site started out originally as a test site for the construction of online units in 'Key Skills in Numeracy' for students at the local University. These are now being delivered to students of the University via WebCT.
The units on this site have been developed further since then. If you find them useful, please be my guest. I would more than welcome any constructive criticism or feedback. Please email me on Brian Daugherty. Thank you in anticipation.
Books mentioned in these Pages
Key Skills, Application of Number, Levels 1-3, Gillespie, Rimmer, Cook, Ronniefield, Longman (referred to in the texts as Key Skills (Longman)
A GCSE Mathematics, Higher Course, A Greer, Stanley Thornes, ISBN 0-7487-1389-1 (referred to in the texts as Greer)
Hints
Is your answer reasonable ?
Calculations It is important that your answers are laid out properly and clearly. This is not just for the benefit of the marker, but also for your own benefit. You need to understand what you have done for the purposes of checking your answers, and this is even more important if you imagine looking at your work again at sometime in the future.
- Show working
- State any formulas you are using
- Start a new line for each line of calculation
- Do not round too early, you may introduce rounding errors
- In general, your answer should not consist of just figures, but also some explanation of what these figures represent. Retracing your calculation to find a mistake, or just to check your calculations, is going to be much easier if you can understand the procedure you used. In general, a page of figures with no explanation tends to be no use at all.
- Check your answers as you proceed
Watch units
- It's a common error to forget to change pence to pounds, etc.
Take note of the advice in the 'Estimation' module - having a rough idea of the answer beforehand will enable you to reject totally-wrong answers, or answers where you have put the decimal point in the wrong place.
Watch when reading values from scales
The aim of this book is to give an overview of the matter contained in the GCSE Mathematics syllabus, without going too deeply into any topic but clarifying and stressing the important points. Essentially, the aim is to give an introduction similar to what I might impart in an introductory lecture, or lectures, before later going into the subject matter in more detail.
[an e-book version (or PDF version to be more precise) is also available]
You can get further information on Amazon which includes a 'Look Inside' facility, but it would be more expensive to actually buy it from there.