Physics/Maths A level

[Milkandacookie]

My daughter has heard you shouldn't do physics A level without maths A level. Is that right?

She'd like to do chemistry physics and psychology....

She could do chemistry physics and maths but is quite keen on psychology.

She also wants to go to a "good" uni and is worried she might not get an A in maths (predicted an 8 at GCSE)

You don’t need A-level Psychology to study it at degree level if she decides to do it later, it’s not a problem. Her degree may also allow some psychology modules to be chosen if that’s where her interest lies.

I think she wanted to do it for A level rather to see which of the 3 she liked. She's unlikely to do it for a degree if she's never studied it although I know she can.

I'd do Maths, Chemistry and Physics. Psychology doesn't add much, whereas the other 3 do.

@Milkandacookie ,

‘So in her head chemistry physics and psychology if she just took subjects she loved.
Chem phys maths if she takes subjects that "make sense"’

That is a really tough one. The advice I always gave students is A levels are hard and, when you have a 2 hour assignment, you will really struggle unless you genuinely enjoy the subject.

But, as you say, I your daughter’s case, Maths, Physics and Chemistry makes sense and will be looked upon favourably by unis if she applied for Psychology.

Can she start four for a few weeks and drop one? Many schools do do that.

Alternatively, I would advise her to have a chat with a teacher whom she trusts and knows her well and ask for advice.

This is a bit off topic but it's also possible to study other subjects at a later point if she wants to. At 16 it can feel a bit like "these are your options, and this is the only chance you will get" but that isn't actually the case. So if she didn't do psychology now - she's not barred from ever returning to it.

Does she want to study any of them at university? My DH studied physics and maths was essential at degree level for even having a basic understanding of degree level physics, at a-level though the two just complimented each other well. I know people who studied engineering who didn’t do maths and they found it a struggle and did extra courses to learn a compressed version of a-level maths. Personally I think chemistry, maths and physics is a good combination because it would give her a lot of degree course options.

As said up thread, you don’t need psychology a-level at most places to do a degree in it if that’s what she wants to do.

She has no idea at the moment only that she likes chemistry physics and psychology and would like a well paid job!

She would be keen on a degree apprenticeship if they didn't seem to mainly lead to the lower paying roles (relatively) as she's concerned we don't have money 😔.

Its so hard at 15 to have a clue about degrees. It's a silly system. Scottish, I and US system seems to keep more options open for longer.

But it is what it is. It's just frustrating.

It does kind of make being a psychologist hard of she does go for that as she'd have to do a conversion degree and get experience and then do the doctorate. But she really doesn't know at 15 hence why she was going to see what the A level is like!

Maybe your daughter could do maths purely for the lessons and not sit the exams? It would help her understanding of the physics

Physics will include any necessary maths. Also she'd need applied maths which might not be the same as 'ordinary' maths.
I did my physics degree without maths, but the degree included applied maths as a module ( which was compulsory even if you had A Level maths)

Disclaimer: I did my degree in 1990s

DS2 is doing a Chemistry degree (if thats anywhere on her future radar). There's a fair bit of difficult maths and his Maths A level has made it so much easier.

Is psychology a level actually a requirement for degree level ?

I think it’s such a shame they have to cut down the subjects so soon ☹️
dd is doing English lit, history and biology and is loving biology at the moment, has started to think maybe she’d like to do a science degree but of course they all seem to want a second science, she really likes chemistry too and got a 9 at gcse but wouldn’t want to drop English or history. She had previously thought she’d do a history degree but is erring more towards science now. It’s so tricky!

No it's not needed but she was keen to do it to see if she was interested in it for further study. It's also likely easier for her than maths!

@Milkandacookie ,

Is she only just starting Year 11? If so, she has plenty of time to decide.

Here's a table of how students do at A-level physics with and without maths A-level. (I've included a separate section of the table to show you the column headers).
Apart from at A*, the kids who did Physics without maths did worse - and only 85.9% of them got a pass grade compared to 95.9% of those who did maths.

New - they seem to want first choices early although I know she can change right up til the last minute if the options are available.

@noblegiraffe wow as ever you are fantastic. We were looking at your maths gcse/A level prediction chart initially which was what was making her think maybe not Maths A level if she wanted a hight grade as she's predicted an 8 not a 9... She can't win!!

@noblegiraffe ,

You, of all people, as a mathematician, should know that at least a part of that correlation is due to the fact that the majority of people who do Physics without maths aren’t that mathematical, as opposed to the maths A level pushing the Physics grade up (although it also does help).

I have taught plenty of A grade (and one probable A* grade) Physics students who didn’t do Maths, but they were (at various levels) mathematical. The best one often embarrassed the double maths students in some of the harder more intuitive problems.

If you want to do Physics or engineering at uni, Maths is essential and even further maths is a big plus, but for Medics and vets (and maybe psychologists), the three sciences is a really good combo.

@Milkandacookie ,

’they seem to want first choices early although I know she can change right up til the last minute if the options are available.’

My son’s school have also asked for the same. I just told him it was a ‘first cut’ and not worth stressing over.

Your daughter is way ahead of some who still aren’t sure whether to go down the Sciences or Arts routes.

Yes she's good at history and English too but she doesn't think she is! (7s) So I think she does want to do some form of sciences.

Its just psychology has interested her. I know she's speaking to some of the 6th formers in her orchestra and getting some ideas.

She'd love to study in London (probably out of our price possibility) or Southampton.

I did (years ago), I got a B. Some bits were quite hard without maths A level and I had a few extra 1:1 sessions with my teacher to go through the harder maths bits. Some modules are less maths heavy.
I wasn't terrible at maths though, did well at gcse but just didn't love it and I don't think I'd have done very well at maths A level, but a good gcse got me through most of the physics.
I did biology & chemistry too and definitely didn't need maths A level for them.

Just a point, does she realise how biological psychology is? The study of psychology at A level/undergrad is mainly about how the brain works, how it develops and interprets things rather than about, for example, mental illness. If she doesn’t like biology it might not be for her.

You, of all people, as a mathematician, should know that at least a part of that correlation is due to the fact that the majority of people who do Physics without maths aren’t that mathematical, as opposed to the maths A level pushing the Physics grade up (although it also does help).

You literally just admitted that maths A-level helps! As the table suggests! Generally sixth forms have a maths GCSE requirement to take Physics too, so they're not going to get on the course if they are bad at maths.

The table also demonstrates that only a small minority of Physics A-level candidates don't take maths A-level.

Thanks Noble. Would you suggest she do chem phys and Maths if predicted an 8 at GCSE maths (got 7 end of year 10 assessment). Obviously she's not the absolute highest and it made me wonder whether A level maths was the right thing... And now maybe she needs it?

Or maybe chemistry, psych and soemthing else!?

You need to be good at maths for both physics and chemistry, but you don't need to study A Level Maths.

I teach maths. There's some overlap with Physics - it's about 17% of the maths course. The way we do it at my school, though, the kids cover the mechanics in Physics before they see it in maths, so doing maths isn't exactly an immediate advantage (although they do get to see this chunk of material twice I suppose. And they get to see it taught "properly", 😉).

But the bulk of the maths A Level is irrelevant for Physics. Generally being comfortable with grade 8/9 maths GCSE work would be enough.

From my experience of doing maths and physics (although many years ago!) the main thing is that the mechanics side of physics uses lots of differentiation (calculus). I hadn't been taught anything about calculus at GCSE (maybe it's different now) so found it really helpful that in maths lessons I was learning about calculus on a conceptual level as well as getting lots of practice, which helped enormously when those equations were required in physics lessons.

I'm sure the physics teacher gave good instruction on the equations side but it was more "learn to do this, this and this" so I would have found that harder to fully understand what I was doing, and why, were it not for the grounding that maths gave me.