Assessment overview
| Paper | Marks | Duration | Weighting | insert text |
Mandatory |
Pure core 1 (Y540) | 75 | 1 hour 30 mins | 25% | Assesses content from pure core and all of the overarching themes |
Pure core 2 (Y541) | 75 | 1 hour 30 mins | 25% | Assesses content from pure core and all of the overarching themes |
Optional (choose any two) |
Statistics (Y542) | 75 | 1 hour 30 mins | 25% | Assesses content from statistics and all of the overarching themes |
Mechanics (Y543) | 75 | 1 hour 30 mins | 25% | Assesses content from mechanics and all of the overarching themes |
Discrete mathematics (Y544) | 75 | 1 hour 30 mins | 25% | Assesses content from discrete mathematics and all of the overarching themes |
Additional pure mathematics (Y545) | 75 | 1 hour 30 mins | 25% | Assesses content from additional pure mathematics and all of the overarching themes |
Students must take both mandatory pure core papers and any two optional papers to be awarded the A Level.
Students may take more than two optional papers to increase the breadth of their course. The combination of papers that results in the best grade will be used.
Content overview
These overarching themes should be applied, across the whole of the detailed content in the specification:
- Mathematical argument, language and proof
- Mathematical problem solving
- Mathematical modelling.
Mandatory papers
Pure mathematics
- Proof
- Complex numbers
- Matrices
- Further vectors
- Further algebra
- Series
- Hyperbolic functions
- Further calculus
- Polar coordinates
- Differential equations
Optional papers (choose two or more)
Statistics
- Probability
- Discrete random variables
- Continuous random variables
- Linear combinations of random variables
- Hypothesis tests and confidence intervals
- Chi-squared tests
- Non-parametric tests
- Correlation
- Linear regression
Mechanics
- Dimensional analysis
- Work, energy and power
- Impulse and momentum
- Centre of mass
- Motion in a circle
- Further dynamics and kinematics
Discrete mathematics
- Mathematical preliminaries
- Graphs and networks
- Algorithms
- Network algorithms
- Decision making in project management
- Graphical linear programming
- The simplex algorithm
- Game theory
Additional pure mathematics
- Sequences and series
- Number theory
- Groups
- Further vectors
- Surfaces and partial differentiation
- Further calculus