If a student gets 9 for maths GCSE, is A for A level always possible?

[Bankholidayweekend]

DD has decided on two of her A level subjects, but is less decided on the third. DD knows what she wants to do at university. Her first two choices are geared towards that. No specific subject needed for the third A level, but DD has ambitions to apply for Oxford, so third subject needs to be something she can get a high grade in if she is to have any chance of achieving her goal. DD is trying to decide between maths and chemistry as third A level. DD was initially inclined to choose maths. DS and I felt quite wary of that choice after the experience of DS who has just finished A levels. DS had grade 8 for maths GCSE and A* for chemistry. DS's view is that with chemistry DD can pretty much assure herself of an A by putting the work in, whereas with maths you can spend hours and hours studying only to find that you still can't answer the question, because if you're not the sort of person who naturally "gets" maths, you may still not spot what you need to do to answer the question. And DS's experience is that getting grade 8 at GCSE is no guarantee that you will fall into the group who "get" maths at A level. So we have steered DD towards chemistry rather than maths. But that was before GCSE results day. DD has got grade 9 in maths and 8 for chemistry. I'm now wondering whether a 9 at GCSE is pretty much always indicative of a student who will be capable of getting a high grade at A level maths. Thoughts welcome!

[Bankholidayweekend]

DD wants to do modern languages at university. Languages are her real passion, but she does enjoy maths.

[Bankholidayweekend]

DD's other A level choices are French and Spanish. She is definite about those. If chemistry is going to be tough without also taking maths, and maths works better as a stand alone subject, perhaps that is an argument in favour of maths as third A level.

[iamme21]

DS got a( two years ago, first yaer od the new grades- he has just scraped at C at Alevel. TBF he put in NO effort

[iamme21]

That should have said DS got a 9 at GCSE

[GaraMedouar]

I did 2 languages at A-level , and Pure Maths. I think that combination works really well. Excellent choice of your DD. I have a very mathematical brain (like my DS!) and I found that languages are also quite mathematical, with the structures, grammar rules etc - I loved doing languages A-level. I assume she’ll go onto uni and do a year abroad - such a great experience.

[RaggieDolls]

My experience is also 25 years out of date but I struggled with A-Level maths as many in this thread have said already.

I did get an A though in the end having had a private tutor for the final year.

At the time I wished I hadn't taken it as I had to work so much harder at it than my other A-Levels. It was also a lot of pressure on my as I needed AAA for university. As an experienced professional in her 40's I'm so pleased I did it. Having a deeper knowledge of maths has really helped me in my career. I'm a lawyer in the public sector and use my 'maths brain' a lot more than I might have anticipated at 18.

Good luck to your DD in making her choice... can you afford a tutor to help her if it comes to that?

[Hoghgyni]

I agree with Gara. Maths will keep her options open after an MFL degree and she'll be in demand with those skills. Having said that though, she needs to take what she wants. My DD took A levels in subjects she had 8s in rather than 9s, with the exception of maths, as she is far more enthusiastic about those.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

She should choose her favourite, but I think maths would make more sense.

[clary]

OK op just read the thread and got to your MFL info - yaytoyour DD for doing two MFL A-levels! I would certainly pair maths with those rather than chemistry. No good reason really, except that I was a modern linguist and still kind of wish I had done maths with French and German instead of ancient Greek. Haha but I do feel maths stands better alone than chemistry. Ime more students take maths and arts/humanities than chemistry.

Where is she hoping to go? Tbh unless it's Oxford any uni will snatch her hand off with two x MFL if she will get good grades in those. DDs pal had offer of ABB for MFL at Warwick for example.

[pennow]

Definitely not a given, A Level maths is notoriously hard. My son got an A*in maths under the old system with 99 ums marks hard to get higher. He found A Level maths incredibly hard but managed to come out with a B.

[clary]

Sorry your op mentions Oxford!

[Sparklypen]

I got an A at O level, back in the day (no A*s back then) - and went on to get a B at A level. Was chuffed with that as there was stuff we were doing, especially towards the end that was at my ceiling.
Matrices..

[Justneedaflippingtemporaryname]

I am wondering whether the highest A level maths grades will go to those taking further maths too and those who don't will therefore be at a disadvantage

My DD takes Maths and Further maths A Level . She says Further Maths makes Maths seem 'ridiculously easy'

[MsAwesomeDragon]

I teach maths A Level, and I love it when I have pupils who got 9 at GCSE. I don't often get them in my class because they usually do further maths, so are in a separate class working more quickly.

If she's got a 9 she has a maths brain. And she's got a decent head start on the ALevel if she's got a good grasp of algebra (which you need in order to get a 9 at GCSE). I would expect anyone with 9 at GCSE to have the potential to get an A/A* at A Level. It's not a given, she will need to work hard at it, but she's got a very good chance of she's prepared to put in the work.

I would recommend she picks the subject she enjoys the most, as she'll be spending a lot of time doing it over the next 2 years. It's better to do a subject you enjoy. And both subjects she's considering are well regarded by universities.

[Witchend]

Dd was telling me about two of her friends.
One got a 8 at GCSE and got a A in maths and a B in further maths.
Once got a 9 at GCSE (and quite a high 9 too) and got a C in maths and gave up further maths.

[choirmumoftwo]

My DD got a 9 in maths at GCSE and is predicted A* at A level. She got an 8 in chemistry and is predicted an A at A level but is finding it much more difficult than the maths, despite having enjoyed both at GCSE. I'd say choose which one she likes best and feels more comfortable with.

[MillicentMartha]

I got an A at O level Maths when the proportion getting an A was 10% of those taking O levels, and as only 36% took O levels, 3.6% of the population, so like a 9 nowadays. I found maths really easy up until A level, where I found I had to work really hard, and couldn’t complete the questions quickly enough. The multi choice paper was an hour for 30 questions. I could only ever get through 20 in that time. So, yes, there is a ceiling for maths, but it’s tricky to know where that will be.

If your DD is doing MFL, wouldn’t English Lit be a better fit? MFL at A level is all about the literature.

[clary]

MFL at A level is really NOT all about the literature, DD did one book, it's really all about the language and the speaking at a high level.

Op my DD says your daughter should do whichever out of maths and chemistry is less work, as she did by far the most work for her French A level.

[clary]

I mean I'm not suggesting either maths or chemistry is easy or not much work; but I guess if you had a real facility for it, maths could be less revision and learning? Certainly no essays!

[MillicentMartha]

Is it not, Clary? My friend’s DS has been complaining that he didn’t realise A level French would have so much literature in it, he thought it would be more language based.

[clary]

Well it's relative I guess - there's more literature than there is in GCSE but then there's none, really in GCSE apart on an extract from a French story in the reading paper.

But yes, I would say, and dd agrees, it's about speaking and writing French. She had to discuss and write about lots of complex topics like strikes and world hunger in target language. She studied one film and one book and wrote about them in French.

I did four books for A level French and wrote about them in ENGLISH (dd was shocked at this) so it's a lot more language based now, rightly so. Maybe your friends DS has been focusing on the book for years 12?

[ErrolTheDragon]

I am wondering whether the highest A level maths grades will go to those taking further maths too and those who don't will therefore be at a disadvantage.

This question came up on another thread not long ago. I did a bit of analysis of the numbers of A* and A grades in maths and FM and it looked to me as though this wasn't really the case. Essentially, although it's true that those doing well in fm will also do well in maths, they're only about 16% of the total who do single maths, and there are a lot of high grades awarded (41% A star/A this year). And if you're thinking about whether she's more likely to get a high grade in maths or chemistry, bear in mind that fewer achieve high grades in chemistry (29%Astar/A)

There's data here:
www.bstubbs.co.uk/a-lev.htm

As a chemist, I would say that maths is the better option if you're only doing one STEM subject.And I'm not at all convinced that students in general find chemistry easier than single maths.

[Thegoodandbadlife]

Before making a decision look into the modules offered by the school for maths. My school forced us to do mechanics alongside the required core modules. The core modules were fine but mechanics let me down so much so I dropped it after AS level to give myself the best opportunity’s to get the A*’s for my required for my subject at Uni. GCSE’s many teachers told us are easy to pass and get very good grades if you put the effort in but at A Level you actually need to be clever to do well in the subject and work hard as it’s not just learning stuff parrot fashion but reading around the subject etc. I’d let her choose the one she’s most confident in and more keen on to allow her the motivation to read round the subject.

[ErrolTheDragon]

I did double maths (pure and applied) back in the day, I thought the mechanics was the easier part! So did DD a couple of years back, come to think, she taught herself an extra module.

[yetanotherdiagnosis]

Would not do Chemistry as a stand alone with 2 languages. Also Chemistry seen at my school as one of the harder A levels. Maths would make sense.