How to revise for A Level maths

To revise for A Level maths, work the lettered subject content the Department for Education prescribes, section by section. Sections A to J are Pure, K to O are Statistics, and P to S are Mechanics. Build the Pure sections first, since both other strands draw on them, then sit full past papers from your board under timed conditions and use the mark schemes to find where method marks are going missing.

Brilliant covers most of the Pure maths, part of the Statistics, and the kinematics statements that open Mechanics. This page covers Brilliant's maths content only. A Level Mathematics is one qualification made of Pure, Statistics and Mechanics, with no optional papers. Section Q's kinematics language, motion graphs and constant-acceleration motion equations now have Brilliant lessons behind them; the units, forces, Newton's laws and moments of Sections P, R and S do not, and are outside this page's scope. To see Brilliant's science topics, go to brilliant.org/science.

What Brilliant does have is the Pure content, and a lot of it: algebra and functions, coordinate geometry, trigonometry, exponentials and logarithms, differentiation and vectors, taught by making you solve problems rather than watch explanations. Use Brilliant for the mathematics and your exam board’s past papers for the exam.

What is on the A Level Mathematics syllabus?

The Department for Education prescribes the subject content and every exam board — AQA, Edexcel and OCR, which awards both its own specification and the MEI one — writes its papers to it. It is organised into lettered sections: A to J are Pure Mathematics, K to O are Statistics, P to S are Mechanics. AS is the first-year subset of the same content.

The A Level maths coverage page lists which Brilliant lesson teaches each content statement — use it to get from whatever your teacher put on the board to the lesson.

Which Brilliant topics carry the Pure sections?

Following a class? Open the topic matching whatever you are covering now. Otherwise work down the table — it runs roughly in the syllabus’s sequence.

Two more sit outside the table. Simultaneous equations and inequality regions are in Linear Systems at Solve by Substituting, and the equation of a circle is in Coordinate Geometry at Leaving the Origin.

One caveat on the three newest rows: all three topics are still being written. Limits has eight of its fifteen levels built and has grown past sequences into limits of functions, one-sided limits, and limits at infinity; Derivatives has eight of nineteen and now runs past the limit definition into differentiating polynomials, sine and cosine, and graphing the derivative; Integrals has five of fourteen, working from Riemann sums and signed area as far as the definite integral. The remaining level titles are listed on each topic page as coming soon. What is there is unusually thorough — it is the pace, not the mapping, that is behind.

Where is Brilliant strongest?

Exponentials and logarithms. Section F is the closest match in the catalog, split across Logarithms and Exponential Functions. Counting Days builds the logarithm as the inverse of exponentiation rather than announcing it, The Product Rule does the log laws, Taking Logs of Both Sides solves aˣ = b, and Percent Increase covers the compound interest and decay models the specification names.

Trigonometry. Arc Length on the Unit Circle and Degrees to Radians construct radian measure from arc length rather than handing you a conversion factor, and Equations in cos and sin covers solving on a given interval, including equations quadratic in sin or cos.

Algebra and functions. The deepest part of the catalog by a wide margin. Between Quadratics, Polynomials and Equations and Curves you get completing the square, the discriminant, factorising, algebraic fractions, asymptotes and holes in Reciprocal Power Functions, and combined graph transformations in Multiple Transforms of Roots.

Differentiation from first principles. Section G is now carried entirely by Derivatives. It opens on average rate of change, builds the difference quotient in Difference Quotients, reaches the derivative from first principles in The Limit Definition of Derivative and the tangent at a point in The Tangent Line, and carries on into whole derivative functions in The Derivative Function of f(x) = x² — the first-principles half of Section G, built rather than asserted. The rules are the other half, and most of them have since arrived: The Power Rule differentiates xⁿ, The Constant Multiple Rule and The Sum Rule take care of the related sums and multiples, The Derivative of Sine and The Derivative of Cosine extend that to sin and cos, and Derivatives of Exponential Functions to eᵏˣ, with the stationary-point work alongside them in Local Extrema. The chain, product and quotient rules and implicit and parametric differentiation are what remain on the get-elsewhere list below.

Integration is a gap that has started to close. The new Integrals topic now carries one Section H statement — evaluating a definite integral and using it to find the area under a curve, at The Definite Integral and the signed-area work in Negative Areas — and it reaches two statements outside Section H: sigma notation, in Section D, at Sigma Notation, and the estimating half of Section I’s numerical integration, at Approximating with Rectangles and Left, Right, and Midpoint Sums. The rest of Section H is still elsewhere work — integration as the reverse of differentiation, integrating powers of x, substitution and by parts — as is the trapezium rule itself, so treat the topic as a start on integration rather than a substitute for being taught it.

How much of the Statistics sections is there?

The descriptive half, most of the probability, and a start on distributions. Everyday Statistics covers centre, spread, box plots and Outliers; Exploring Data Visually covers histograms and choosing a chart; Regression covers scatter diagrams, Correlation, fitting a line, and why correlation is not causation. For Section M, Probability in Data does mutually exclusive and independent events in Dependence and Independence, and Probability and Chance does Conditional Probability.

Notice where the inferential material lives: sampling to say something about a population is in Estimating Probabilities, and discrete probability distributions in Predicting with Probability at Dealing with Uncertainty and Accumulating Probability — probability topics, not statistics ones. Nothing on Brilliant is a hypothesis test.

What do you need to get elsewhere?

Mechanics, after its opening kinematics statements. Section Q opens with the language of kinematics, with displacement-time and velocity-time graphs, and with constant-acceleration motion equations, and all three now have lessons behind them: Linear Motion and Motion Under Gravity in Quadratics set up and solve motion equations, Net Change and Velocity in Derivatives read the graphs, and Adding Velocities adds resultant and relative velocity as vectors. Everything past that you get elsewhere: deriving the constant-acceleration formulae themselves, calculus in kinematics, projectiles, and the whole of Sections P, R and S — units, forces, Newton's laws, friction and moments.

Hypothesis testing and the Normal distribution. Null and alternative hypotheses, significance levels, critical regions and p-values; the binomial test for a proportion; the Normal distribution and tests on its mean; and choosing which distribution suits a context.

Proof, and a list of Pure techniques. Section A’s proof by deduction, exhaustion, counter-example and contradiction is not on Brilliant. Sequences themselves have since arrived — Limits covers nth-term rules, term-to-term recurrences, arithmetic and geometric sequences, and increasing, decreasing and periodic sequences — but most of the series work has not: sigma notation is now taught, in Integrals rather than Limits, where Sigma Notation translates a sum into the notation and back, while the arithmetic and geometric sum formulae are still missing, with Comparing Geometric Sequences stopping at the limit of a geometric sequence rather than its sum. Nor are the binomial expansion, parametric equations, partial fractions, the chain, product and quotient rules, implicit and parametric differentiation, differential equations, integration from antiderivatives through substitution and by parts, the trapezium rule and Newton–Raphson iteration, small angle approximations, and the compound and double angle formulae. Several are short to learn and heavily examined — the addition formulae and the differentiation rules especially — so take them early rather than late.

Where does Further Mathematics fit?

It does not, and that explains two things you might otherwise find odd. Further Mathematics is a separate qualification with its own content, and is not mapped here. So the vectors work stops at components, magnitude and direction, and addition: scalar and vector products and the vector equations of lines and planes are Further Maths, not A Level Maths. And the matrix algebra in Brilliant’s Matrices topic sits outside this syllabus for the same reason, as does all of Brilliant’s Complex Numbers topic — though the basis-vector lessons that open Matrices do map to Section J.

What should you use alongside Brilliant?

Your exam board’s specification and its past papers with mark schemes. The specification tells you which statements your papers can draw on; the mark schemes tell you where method marks come from, which is where most lost marks are. Working full papers under timed conditions is the highest-value revision available, and Brilliant does not replace it. A workable rhythm: sit a paper, sort the misses into “I did not know the maths” and “I ran out of time”, and bring only the first pile back to Brilliant.

Is Brilliant a complete A Level maths course?

No. Brilliant is not affiliated with any exam board and has no past papers or mark schemes, and of Mechanics it teaches only the opening kinematics statements. Brilliant is the understanding layer for the Pure content, part of the Statistics and the start of Section Q — where you go when a topic did not land in class. Your specification, textbook and past papers are the exam layer, and this qualification needs both.

How this mapping was made

Brilliant’s curriculum team maps each skill to the content statement it fits most closely, using the Department for Education’s published subject content for AS and A level mathematics as the authority. The data behind this page was pulled on November 6, 2026 against the live topic catalog.

Frequently asked questions

Does this page cover the Mechanics paper?

Only its opening statements. Brilliant now reaches Q.1 to Q.3 in part — the language of kinematics and constant-acceleration motion equations in the motion lessons of Quadratics, and reading displacement-time and velocity-time graphs in the opening levels of Derivatives — and Adding Velocities covers resultant and relative velocity as vectors. The rest of the Mechanics paper is physics rather than maths content, and this page does not map it. To see Brilliant's science topics, go to brilliant.org/science.

I am only taking AS. Does this page still apply?

Yes. AS draws on the same lettered sections with a smaller slice of each, so the topics above are the same ones — you just stop earlier inside several of them.

Related resources

• A Level maths coverage: topic-by-topic Brilliant lesson mapping
• GCSE maths coverage: topic-by-topic Brilliant lesson mapping
• Does Brilliant cover Calculus?
• What math does Brilliant cover?
• Explore Brilliant’s topics

Sources

[1] Department for Education, Mathematics: AS and A level content, for the lettered subject content sections A to S.

[2] Brilliant, standards alignment database, pulled on November 6, 2026.

[3] Brilliant, “A Level maths coverage: topic-by-topic Brilliant lesson mapping”.

[4] Brilliant, “Topics”.