Curriculum > FAM

Foundations of Advanced Mathematics (FAM)

Information

This course was introduced as a stand-alone module in 1993. It is approved by QCA as an intermediate Free Standing Mathematics Qualification.

This course is assessed by a 40 question multiple choice examination. (The examination for the previous course had 30 multiple choice questions.) The paper in June, 2003 was the first to assess the new syllabus. There are minor changes, the most significant of which is the inclusion of the sine and cosine rules.

This course is designed for a variety of students:

  • Those with limited success at GCSE who aspire to go on to take AS and possibly A Level.
  • Mature students who wish to update their mathematics before embarking on AS/A Level.
  • Students not doing AS/A Level Mathematics who nonetheless plan to take Higher Education courses that include a numerate element.
  • Students taking AS/A Levels (other than mathematics), or VCEs, that require mathematical competence. A number of OCR VCE mathematics units are based on this specification.

For further information please contact Stella Dudzic.

  

Resources

A dedicated book (Foundations of Advanced Mathematics)

Specimen Paper

Past papers (prior to June 2003 the papers were only 30 questions)

A set of summary sheets has been produced in the same style as the module summaries for Structured Mathematics and the Advanced FSMQ Additional Mathematics. These are essentially revision sheets for students and are available in hard copy as photocopyable masters. They have been written in Publisher 2003 and are also available on disc.

The following link is a word documentCompetence Statements

The full specification is published by OCR: www.ocr.org.uk
This includes Notes, Notation and Exclusions to accompany the Competence Statements. There is also a considerable amount of information about the scheme as a whole and its assessment.