Every year, somewhere between Class VIII and Class IX, the same question arrives in my inbox — usually from a parent, sometimes from a student who has already half decided and wants permission.
Should I take Additional Mathematics?
It deserves a better answer than the two that are usually given. “Take it, it looks good on your transcript” is not advice. Neither is “don’t, it’s too hard.” So here is the answer I give in my own classroom, with the reasoning behind it.
The short answer
Take Additional Mathematics (4037) if you intend to study A Level Mathematics, engineering, medicine, economics, computer science or any physical science — and if you are currently comfortable, not merely surviving, in ordinary Mathematics.
Skip it if mathematics is not part of your intended path, or if your grasp of algebra is still shaky. A weak grade in 4037 helps nobody. A strong grade in 4024 alone is a perfectly respectable outcome.
Everything below is the reasoning — because the borderline cases are where the real decision lives.
These are two different subjects, not two difficulty levels
The most common misunderstanding is that 4037 is simply “harder 4024.” It is not. They are separate syllabuses, sat as separate examinations, and most students who take Additional Mathematics take both.
O Level Mathematics (Syllabus D, 4024) is the broad foundation: number, algebra, geometry, mensuration, coordinate geometry, trigonometry, probability and statistics. It rewards accuracy, method and steadiness. It is wide rather than deep.
Additional Mathematics (4037) is narrower and considerably deeper. It introduces functions and their inverses, logarithmic and exponential functions, surds and polynomial factorisation, circular measure in radians, binomial expansions, permutations and combinations, two-dimensional vectors — and, above all, calculus: differentiation and integration, and their application to gradients, rates of change, maxima and minima, areas and kinematics.
That last item is the whole point, and it is why the decision matters more than students realise.
What the gap actually feels like
Abstract descriptions of difficulty are not much use. So consider the same picture asked two ways.
The 4024 version: a rectangle has a perimeter of 40 cm and a length of 12 cm. Find its area.
You find the width — 8 cm — and multiply. Area is 96 cm². One route, arithmetic, done.
The 4037 version: a rectangle has a perimeter of 40 cm. Find its greatest possible area.
Now no length has been given, and there is nothing to substitute. You have to build the problem yourself. Let the length be x; the width is then 20 − x, so the area is
A = x(20 − x) = 20x − x²
Differentiate, set the result to zero, and the maximum appears: dA/dx = 20 − 2x = 0, so x = 10, and the greatest area is 100 cm² — a square, as it happens.
Same rectangle. Same perimeter. But the second question asks you to turn a situation into a function and then interrogate that function. That shift — from calculating a number to modelling a relationship — is the real content of Additional Mathematics. Students who enjoy that shift tend to flourish. Students who want each question to have one memorised route tend to struggle, however diligent they are.
The three things that actually make it demanding
- Calculus is genuinely new. Nothing in 4024 prepares you for it conceptually. It cannot be absorbed the night before; it has to be built.
- Algebra is assumed, not taught. 4037 does not pause to revise factorisation, indices or manipulation of fractions. It uses them constantly and at speed. A student who is still slow with algebra will find the calculus impossible to reach — not because the calculus is beyond them, but because every question stalls two lines in.
- It runs alongside everything else. Additional Mathematics is an extra subject taken in the same two years, in the same examination session, as all the others. The workload is real and it is concurrent.
The reason it matters more than the certificate
Here is what I most want parents to understand.
The advantage of Additional Mathematics is not chiefly the extra O Level. It is that AS and A Level Mathematics begin roughly where 4037 leaves off. Differentiation, integration, functions, logarithms, radians, binomial expansion — these reappear in Pure Mathematics 1 immediately, and at greater depth.
A student arriving at AS Level having done 4037 is revisiting familiar ideas with more rigour. A student arriving without it is meeting calculus for the first time while the pace doubles. Both can succeed. But the first has a considerably gentler first term, and in my experience that early confidence tends to compound over the two years.
If A Level Mathematics is in your plan, 4037 is the single best preparation available to you — and when you get there, this is how the A* is actually won and lost.
Five honest questions before you decide
Answer these truthfully rather than optimistically.
- In ordinary Mathematics, are you comfortably above 70% — or are you working very hard to stay near the pass mark?
- Can you factorise, expand and rearrange algebraic expressions quickly and confidently, without checking each step?
- When a question does not resemble one you have practised, do you find that interesting or alarming?
- Do your intended A Level subjects or university courses require mathematics?
- Can you honestly commit an additional three to four hours each week for two years?
Four or five yes answers: take it. You will very likely do well, and you will thank yourself at AS Level.
Two or three: the deciding factor is question 4. If mathematics is required for your path, take it and arrange proper support from the beginning — not in the final six months. If it is not required, your effort is better spent strengthening your other subjects.
Zero or one: do not take it this year. Spend the time making your ordinary Mathematics excellent instead. An A in 4024 is worth far more than a D in 4037, and a genuinely secure foundation leaves the door to A Level Mathematics open. Many strong A Level candidates never sat 4037 at all.
If you decide to take it
Three things separate the students who do well from the students who merely enrol.
Repair your algebra first. Before the syllabus begins, get fast and accurate with indices, surds, factorisation and rearranging formulae. Almost every 4037 difficulty I am asked to fix turns out, on inspection, to be an algebra difficulty in disguise. (It heads the ten mistakes that cost 4037 students the most marks.)
Learn calculus as an idea, not a procedure. A student who knows that a derivative is a rate of change can handle an unfamiliar question. A student who has only memorised “bring the power down and subtract one” cannot, and will be found out in the exam.
Start past papers early — and read the mark schemes. Not in the last month. The mark scheme tells you what the examiner rewards, which is frequently the working rather than the answer. Method marks are the cheapest marks in the paper and the most often thrown away.
One practical note: Cambridge revises its syllabuses periodically, so always check the official syllabus document for your examination year before planning your revision. Your school will have it.
A closing thought
Additional Mathematics is where mathematics stops being a set of procedures to reproduce and becomes a language for describing how things change. That is a genuinely different experience, and for the right student it is the point at which the subject finally becomes interesting rather than merely required.
The question is not whether 4037 is hard. It is whether you are ready for it — and readiness is something that can be built, if you start early enough.
If you are weighing this decision for yourself or for your child and would like a straight opinion, you are welcome to book a free class. Bring a topic you find difficult; that conversation usually settles the question faster than any amount of speculation.