Preparing for A Levels
Latin
Years of study
required: Three years.
Students should be prepared to study for 9 hours (incl. lesson time) per week.
Exam Board: OCR. See specification page. Note that the new A Level syllabus
(first sitting in 2018) still provides for exams at AS (Advanced Subsidiary)
level, but these are now standalone qualifications and no longer count toward
the full A Level.
Textbooks: Cheaper versions of the following books
may be available either (i) secondhand or (ii) for the Amazon Kindle reader.
Core Language Textbooks
· Latin Beyond GCSE by John Taylor covers the
linguistic requirements for Latin A Level.
· Ovid Unseens: preparation for verse unseens
· Prose Unseens: preparation for prose unseens
· North & Hillard:
preparation for prose composition
Set Texts (2025-2026)
· Tacitus,
Annals
· Juvenal,
Satires
Additional Aids
· Collins Latin Dictionary: useful
Latin-English, English-Latin dictionary
· No Dictionaries:
online dictionary for dozens of Latin authors
Beyond A-Level: For those who wish to take Latin beyond
A-Level but prefer not to incur the expense (not to mention grave danger) of
studying in a modern-day 'university', consider consolidating your Latin with
Fr Henle's outstanding four-part series. His
Second Year Latin (focusing on Caesar's Gallic Wars) should be fairly
straightforward after AS studies, and his
Third Year Latin (focusing on Cicero's Orations) would be
readily accessible after A2 studies. When students have finished Fr Henle's Fourth Year Latin (focusing on Virgil's Aeneid),
they should be as accomplished as any second-year undergraduate.
Classical Greek
Years of study
required: Three years.
Students should be prepared to study for 9 hours (incl. lesson time) per week.
Exam Board: OCR. See specification
page. Note that the new A Level syllabus (for first sitting in 2018)
still provides for exams at AS (Advanced Subsidiary) level, but these are
stand-alone qualifications now and no longer count towards the full A Level.
Textbooks: Cheaper versions of the following books
may be available either (i) secondhand or (ii) for the Amazon Kindle reader.
· Greek Beyond GCSE by John Taylor covers the
linguistic requirements for Classical Greek A Level.
· OCR
Anthology for Greek AS and A Level covers the set text prescriptions.
· Greek Unseen Translation prepares candidates
to tackle unseens.
· The
Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek (for which see our Answer Key) is also
recommended at this stage.
For students keen to get to
grips with Homer, Clyde Pharr's Homeric Greek is strongly recommended. A pdf copy can
be downloaded for free from Textkit.
The set texts, both prose and
verse, are mainly taken from authors of the 5th and 4th centuries BC. They may
include Homer, Aristophanes, Plato, and Thucydides or Herodotus.
Biblical
Studies: The Greek studied
in the British exam syllabus is Attic Greek, not the Common Greek (or Koine)
used in the Septuagint and New Testament. However, once the student has
completed A-level studies, the transition to Common Greek is exceptionally
easy. Our own current attempt to translate the whole of the Ancient Greek Bible
can be found here.
Maths
Study required: A Level Maths is a challenging syllabus.
Students who failed to obtain a top grade (8+) in GCSE Maths are going to find
it too difficult to tackle in two years, so they should consider doing it in
three, perhaps taking in GCSE Further Mathematics en route. Students should be
prepared to study for 12+ hours (incl. lesson time) per week if taking the
course over two years or 9+ hours per week if taking it over three years.
Exam Board: Edexcel: See specification. Students sit three two-hour papers at
the end of their studies: two Pure Maths papers and one combined
Statistics/Mechanics paper.
Textbooks: We use the new Pearson
series. See right for the four text books used. Kindle versions are
also available. In addition to these four books, there are four associated Exam
Practice books, which students should work through if they wish to obtain the
very best grade.
You will also need to downoad
the Large
Data Set. Websites offering extensive video coverage of the syllabus
include examsolutions.co.uk
and m4ths.com.
Exam
Calculators: You will
require a calculator for A Level Maths. 
Some students
make do with a scientific calculator alone. I think this a mistake. Purchase a
graphic calculator if you really want to maximize your chances of obtaining a
top grade. I recommend the Casio fx-CG50 (pictured right, around £100). This
is the calculator we use in class, and I cover its rich functionality in
depth. Watch Casio's Online
training videos to learn the basics. Just be careful when using it, as
the new keyboard is defective, occasionally repeating keystrokes and thus
giving the wrong answer unless the duplicated input is corrected. Casio should
sit up and take notice, as they are endangering students’ exam results by
the faulty key contacts used in their newly designed keyboard.
Check prices on Oxford Educational Supplies and also Pearson Edexcel UK before you decide to buy elsewhere. Finally, don't buy a calculator with ana inbuilt CAS (Computer Algebra System) as it won't be allowed in the exam room. The free third-party XCas add-in provides rich CAS functionality for the fx-CG50, but remember either to remove it from your calculator or to put the calculator in Exam Mode before you sit your exams with it.
Free Non-Exam
Calculators: There are
many excellent free calculator apps available. Here's a list of some of the
best:
· Desmos
· Geogebra
· HP Prime (Pro version also available)
· XCas
Beyond A Level: For those wishing to pursue Maths further,
consider doing the Further Maths A Level. Briefly, this requires one to sit two
Core Pure Mathematics papers (green books on right) and any two other papers
from the eight remaining options. When you've done that, consider studying the
remaining six modules! That will give you a breadth of mathematical knowledge
which surpasses that of almost all university maths students.
If you wish to study first
year university maths, either on your own or with our e-Academy, Stroud's Engineering
Mathematics can hardly be bettered.
For those thinking of applying
to read maths at University, consider studying the delightful preparatory
challenges in Advanced
Problems in Mathematics.