Review: "A- Level Mathematics Challenging Drill Questions" By Thomas Bond, Chris Hughes |
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This is my humble simple review of a popular revision book for 'A' Level mathematics, especially at the H2 level.  Strengths 1. Each chapter contains many questions, good for exposure purposes. For example, the chapter on Sequences And Series has over 170 practice questions. 2. A hardcopy (of the question book) is relatively affordable at $15.95 with numerical answers provided. 3. All major topics are covered. 4. Solution book is available as a separate entity so that the student can refer to both questions and solutions with greater ease. Weaknesses 1. The topics are not meticulously divided and the questions appear during certain instances to be in a jumbled mess. For example, the questions on summation and mathematical induction are mixed together,as such it is actually quite difficult for a student to practice questions on a single topic at a time. 2. The problems in the book are not being carefully selected. For example, there are plenty of questions on Mathematical Induction based on summation. However there are only 1 or 2 questions on Mathematical Induction involving sequences with recurrence relations. 3. The solution book is very expensive, costing approximately $58. If they are not profit driven, they probably would have provided e-solutions through online registration-one unique user code generated per purchase of the question book . 4. The questions are mostly of average difficulty, and aren't as “challenging” as claimed by the book title. These books are suitable for students who can achieve a safe pass on their own (C grade and above) and hope to improve their grades through additional practice. These books are NOT suitable for students who are struggling to achieve a pass as the questions are not arranged in a user friendly format; they are also neither sufficiently sorted according to topic nor level of difficulty. |
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This review was first published over at the blog of Mathematics tutor Mr Ang Wei Cang on 24 February 2015. It is reproduced with permission. |
