Explain this
Core 2 for Edexcel (SMP AS/A2 Mathematics for Edexcel)
How the publisher describes it:
“Based on extensive feedback from teachers, these popular A Level titles have been written by the experienced team that produced SMP Interact for GCSE. These are clear, user-friendly texts that both teacher and student will enjoy using. Each chapter's objectives are clearly set out and new concepts are carefully developed in a way that involves the student. Worked examples are designed to clarify ideas and techniques, and there is plenty of well-graded practice and revision, including past exam questions that show the standard required. Key points are highlighted as they arise and are gathered in a summary at the end of the chapter, where there is also a self-assessment section. Each book contains a detailed contents analysis and the chapters are structured so that you can easily tell what part of the specification you are covering. Opportunities for classroom discussion are marked, and starred questions provide extra challenge where needed.”
Review by Jonny Griffiths
In brief:
Overall this strikes me as a razor-sharp piece of writing that has been assembled in a really bright way, a book from which students and teachers alike will gain a huge amount. SMP are to be congratulated.
“The proof-reading seems to have been excellent: I could not spot a single error in my reading.”
What do I ask of a textbook in my classroom? That it contains a good selection of consolidation exercises certainly, with answers for self-checking and for suggesting possible lines of enquiry to those who are stuck. I need a clear explanation of the theory, so that my students can triangulate what is in the book with my version of events. There must be well-chosen examples to turn to when unsure of what to do. A summary of key points is helpful, to aid my students in revision.
This book supplies all of this, and more. There are mixed end-of-chapter groups of questions that will be a godsend for many teachers. Students can try out the wording and approach of actual exam questions in the Test Yourself sections. The diagrams are crisp and uncluttered. There is the invention of a Perfect Student, who supplies a running commentary in italics throughout the examples. The occasional bit of history is added for background. The proof-reading seems to have been excellent: I could not spot a single error in my reading.
Perhaps I also ask this of my textbook, to supply open-ended investigational ideas as ways of getting into a topic. The MEI textbooks, for example, do carry such investigations, although mostly at the end of a topic, whilst I find that often the best place to bring in investigational work is at the start of some new theory. This book does supply ‘Discussion Points’, but while some of these have the right feel, many seem to be too similar to the other questions, and rather closed in character. Yet maybe a textbook is not the place to look for these (often highly personal) open activities: maybe each teacher has to collect together and customise such tasks from elsewhere.
This book is lean, at 160 pages that are considerably less than A4. It seems that every full stop has had to win its place, and the lack of padding is to be welcomed. My students groan every time I hand out some monster textbook that they will have to haul into college and back a hundred times - there can no such complaints here. This sleekness should mean that the price is highly competitive too. Overall this strikes me as a razor-sharp piece of writing that has been assembled in a really bright way, a book from which students and teachers alike will gain a huge amount. SMP are to be congratulated.
Jonny Griffiths • Mathematics Department at Paston College, North Walsham, Norfolk, UK
Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (15 July 2004)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0521605342
ISBN-13: 978-0521605342
Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 18.6 x 1 cm
