Math requirement to apply for course?

Question

Hi I have been programming for a while now and I'm about to leave my job to study more. The course I want to study says it requires year 12 / sixth form mathematics or I can take an exam there when I apply. I never did any year 12 so I have no idea what to expect. My maths have been fine for what I need so far but I'm worried that I'll be given all sorts of unfair questions.

Will the math questions likely be programming related for a programming course?

What should I study?

Edit:

Its in New Zealand but I think it would probably be similar to UK sixth form.

Answer 1

Given the reference to Y12/Sixth Form, I'm going to assume UK AS level maths, which covers trigonometry, introductory calculus, algebra and geometry.

Your course requirements will almost certainly vary, but in my experience, you'll probably find discrete maths topics to be most relevant to computer science/computing related fields - that is, set theory, prepositional/predicate logic etc. The chances are, if you're at all competent at programming, most of that will come to you fairly easily.

That's not to say that the other stuff is completely useless - particularly coupled with the applied mathematics components (mechanics, statistics, etc.), it's a great way to build your thinking in a different direction.

Answer 2

Programming related maths questions can be broken down pretty much into purely programming related and domain related. On the programming side many algorithms are based on discrete methods, and computer graphics deal with a lot of geometry and trig. Once you start hitting domain specific stuff, you can include most other mathematics, including lots of statistics and numerical methods.

What should I study?

Have a look at the first year cirriculum and talk to the tutors, this should give you a fair idea.

Answer 3

I doubt the math questions will be programming related, since that is a seperate and on the whole much harder area. It is also an area where you really have to know the underlying math before you can tackle.

For example a question like "solve this set of linear equations" is a lot easier to tackle than "write a program that will solve linear equations of this type in a reasonably effective manner". And if you can't do the first you have no real chance of doing the second.

I'm sure you can ask for a copy of some old exams to see what kind of questions they'll be asking. Take a look at those and try to guage if you have the skills necessary.

Answer 4

My CS degree did not have a maths pre-req, but I'm very glad I had A level maths, and I wish my maths syllabus had covered some stuff it hadn't. Those who didn't have A level maths struggled with some of the courses.

Having said that, it's nothing you can't catch up on with some self-study. Working through an A-level revision guide, maybe asking someone to help you with any parts that don't make sense, would quickly fix things.

Maths topics I encountered on my course include

• Trigonometry: mostly in graphics work
• Calculus: comes up a fair amount, especially in simulation software
• Matrices: used a lot in bitmap graphics. Also came up in genetic algorithms and neural nets.
• Stats: I needed this for analysing the success of genetic algorithms. It will be useful elsewhere.

(The one I wish I'd been taught in school is matrices. Why WJEC didn't include this in their syllabus at that time is beyond me.)

Answer 5

Further comment, re the exam. I strongly suggest you ask the entrance officer about this.

In my experience, as long as you're motivated and intelligent, universities don't want to turn you away. It's likely that they'd be happy to give you a list of maths subjects to read up on before the exam.