SMP AS/A2 Mathematics Core 2 for Edexcel
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&rdsquo;, 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
SMP AS/A2 Mathematics Core 2 for Edexcel
Series: SMP AS/A2 Mathematics for Edexcel
Corporate Author School Mathematics Project
Paperback
ISBN-10: 0521605342 / ISBN-13: 9780521605342
Published July 2004
£8.50
