[OT] Maths GCE O-Level text books from 70s-80s ?

Not a scooby. 'O' Level was 47 years ago.

And earlier!

You should be able to find them in a copyright library- though which ones your school actually used might be harder to determine. Old exam papers are usually available too - they make interesting reading.

Spherical trig and great circle navigation was still on the syllabus when I did it as were the basics of integral and differential calculus.

I never did exams at School I'm completely self taught lets see, three andtd three are 9.... :-)

Brian

What a Wally, everyone knows it is thirty three

Can't help with specifics, but I always use

Not for O level... The only maths one I recall is the K A Stroud book of Engineering Maths that I had (in fact still have) later.

Keep in mind the syllabus is potentially very different from our day. There also seems to be a trend for each exam board to produce their own revision guide. These are ok and worth having, but tend to be very "busy" with the loud "angry fruit salad" school of page layout and colour selection!

There were a set of books the school had that I recall for their covers decorated with a set of "Heath Robinson" style line drawings of daft machines. I don't recall much else about them though.

I remember those, although did not own copies. I have a pair of books by Tom Duncan ("Fields, waves, & Atoms" and "Materials & Mechanics"), and then a single volume by Roger Muncaster which is quite good but also very concise.

I was looking for some old papers the other day - in particular A Level Computer Science from around '86 (A.E.B IIRC). Not found it yet...

LOL. I was appalled when I saw my best friend's daughter's 'A' Level Maths revision guide. It looked like the Beano!

I've been trying searches like that for 3 days :)

It's how I remembered the Bostock and Chandler (recognised the image) but no joy with my O Level books :(

Although the Alpha and Beta books were in use at my primary school (we got Beta as we were thick)

Indeed they do! I found some from my time - and interestingly, Cambridge still run a GCE O Level syllabus for other countries (Singapore is one IIRC) as our GCSEs are a relative joke.

And yes, O Level physics is decently hard back then (and even now with the Cambridge one) - but the GCSE (pre 9-1 system) is a complete joke. More like "general science".

Markov chains, proper permutation and combination calculations, decent amount of calculus, matices (to be fair, most of those were AO level and A level)

Would Bob have a lead on those?

Interesting resource - thank you.

That allows searching by publication date, so that would help.

Yes indeed. My plan here is to add some extra material where it seems useful and to go into more depth on whatever subject they are learning today.

That might ring a bell...

And A Level maths is less tainted than GCSE Physics. If you looked at that (AQA) you would weep.

When I bought the A Level physics book, I saw comments saying "found this useful for 1st year uni". *sigh*

I've heard it from the other side too - asked a Senior Lecturer in physics at a good uni, what he thought of the British kids.

The reply was essentially: totally behind, compared to many of the foreign students - we have to run a remedial maths course in the 1st year...

My school used the "School Mathematics Project" books in the 1970's. They were published by Cambridge University Press, but we used them for the London Board O, AO and A levels.

Aren't some STEM courses going to 4 years now, so the Uni's can teach remedial maths in the first year?

For O level maths? (No O levels when I were at school in Scotland)

I did not know that...

Presumably the oriental kids will enter straight in at 2nd year?