A.M. ONLINE

### Weekly Grinds

There are many questions that students often ask us in Teacher Chat shortly after joining A.M. Online.

To save you the time of asking them yourself, we have provided the answers to these common questions below!

##### 1) What stationery do I need? Do I need anything else?

You will not use any additional stationery that you don’t already need for Leaving Cert Maths.

Primarily, you will use the following:

• pens (preferably multiple colours)
• ruler
• copybook (This can be a normal copybook, a maths copybook, an A4 pad or indeed whatever you prefer!)

You will also need the following:

• scientific calculator – Don’t worry if you don’t have one right now as you won’t need one for the first few lessons. A scientific calculator is also required for Leaving Cert Maths and therefore you will be required to get one eventually!
• Formulae and Tables booklet – you can download a free copy here! – When sitting any Leaving Cert exam that involves maths, including Applied Maths, this booklet is provided to you so that you don’t have to spend time memorising everything. As such, it’s a good idea to refer to this booklet as you go through the lessons so that you get accustomed to knowing where each formula is, thereby saving you the time looking for the right page on the exam!
##### 2) I don’t know whether I should do Higher Level or Ordinary Level! Help!

Don’t worry, it’s completely understandable to be unsure of what level to take!

Unless you have been advised otherwise, we recommend that all students initially assume that they are doing Higher Level.

Due to the precise way our lessons are structured, most students will then get a sense of the level that is most suitable to them as they work their way through the topics.

If you are still unsure which level to do at the beginning of 6th year, we suggest that you contact Mr. Kenny on Teacher Chat and he will offer you further guidance!

##### 3) I like to scribble notes and use highlighters in my schoolbooks. Is it possible to do that on this website?

Yes! There are many free tools available that allow you to do just that.

Our personal recommendation is hypothes.is, a free browser extension that can be set up in less than minute by following the steps here.

If you encounter any issues with this extension, feel free to contact Mr. Kenny on Teacher Chat and he will be happy to help!

##### 4) Do you recommend any other resources for Applied Maths students?

A.M. Online was created with the aim of giving students one place to find everything that they need for this subject, and we believe that we’ve achieved that goal.

However, more resources are never a bad thing!

Therefore, within each Summary page at the end of each topic, we have provided an Additional Resources box with external links that we believe could be beneficial to a student’s learning, an example of which is shown below.

Vector simulator – visualise the addition and decomposition of vectors

Dot product simulator – visualise the dot product of two vectors

“Riverboat” Simulator – an example of vector addition in which a boat moves in the same direction as $$\vec{v}_{\text{boat}}+\vec{v}_{\text{wind}}$$

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### IMPORTANT

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For this subject in particular, students should be very careful when using additional resources that we have not recommended.

The syllabus has changed significantly for the 2023 Leaving Cert onwards. Therefore, the overwhelming majority of resources online that are designed for Leaving Cert Applied Maths are misleading, unhelpful and/or redundant.

Specifically, if you come across a website for Applied Maths that does mention any of the following:

• Statics
• Hydrostatics
• Wedges
• Relative velocity

you should completely ignore that website. These concepts are only found in the old syllabus and therefore the content of that website has not been updated for the new syllabus.

Likewise, if you come across a website for Applied Maths that does not mention all of the following:

• Difference equations