Table Of ContentH1
Mathematics
Textbook
CHOO YAN MIN
Includes TYS & Answers.
Covers 8865 (revised) syllabus.
This version: 19th August 2016.
The latest version will always be at this link.
Recent changes: First complete draft done.
Upcoming changes: None planned.
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Errors? Feedback? Email me!
(cid:44) (cid:44)
With your help, I plan to keep improving this textbook.
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This book is licensed under the Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0.
You are free to:
• Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
• Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms:
• Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and
indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any
way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
• NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
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your contributions under the same license as the original.
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that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notices:
You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain
or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation. No warranties are
given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use.
For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use
the material.
Author: Choo, Yan Min.
Title: H1 Mathematics Textbook.
ISBN: 978-981-11-0755-9 (e-book).
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The first thing to understand is that mathematics is an art.
Paul Lockhart (2009, A Mathematician’s Lament, p. 22).
A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are
more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas. ... Beauty is the
first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.
- G.H. Hardy (1940 [1967], A Mathematician’s Apology, pp. 84-85).
The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because
he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful.
- Henri Poincaré (1908 [1914], Science and Method, English trans., p. 22).
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About This Book
This textbook is for Singaporean H1 Maths students. It is based exactly on the revised
(8865) syllabus (also reproduced from p. 317 of this book), which will be examined for
1
the first time only in 2017.
I assume that if you’re an H1 Maths student, you
• have passed O-Level Mathematics;
• may or may not have taken O-Level Additional Mathematics;
• are somewhat weaker or less interested in maths than the average H2 Maths student;
• want to learn or do the minimum amount of maths necessary to get an A;
• won’t be studying such subjects as mathematics, physics, engineering, or economics at
university.
This textbook is thus written simply and non-rigorously. For example, there are few formal
2
definitions or proofs.
Simple and non-rigorous as this textbook may be, I fully intend that a careful study of this
textbook (complemented by a capable teacher) will easily earn you your A in H1 Maths.
You might also be interested in reading this brief 3-page document: H1 Maths vs H2 Maths:
What’s the Difference? Which Should I Take?
• FREE! This book is free. But if you paid any money for it, I certainly hope your money
is going to me! This book is free because:
1. It is a shameless advertising vehicle for my awesome tutoring services.
2. The marginal cost of reproducing this book is zero.
• DONATE! This book may be free, but donations are more than welcome! Donation
3
methods in footnote.
It’s irrational for Homo economicus to donate. But please consider donating because:
1. You’re a nice human being [*emotional_manipulation*].
2. Your donations will encourag(cid:44)e me and others to continue producing awesome free content
for the world.
1The old syllabus is 8864, to be examined for the last time in 2017. It is not very different from 8865.
2This is in contrast to my H2 Mathematics Textbook, which is an authoritative reference that the interested H1 Maths
student should look at. That H2 Mathematics Textbook covers the same topics (and more) as this textbook, but much
more rigorously and thoroughly. Indeed a good deal of this H1 Mathematics Textbook is simply a diluted version of that
H2 Mathematics Textbook.
3Singapore. POSB Savings Account 174052271 or OCBC Savings Account 5523016383 (Name: Choo Yan Min). Interna-
tional. Bitcoin wallet: 1GDGNAdGZhEq9pz2SaoAdLb1uu34LFwViz. Paypal [email protected] (Name: Yan Min Choo,
USD preferred because this account was set up in the US). USA. Venmo link (Name: Yanmin Choo).
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• HELP ME IMPROVE THIS BOOK! Feel free to email me if:
1. There are any errors in this book. Please let me know even if it’s something as trivial
as a spelling mistake or a grammatical error.
2. You have absolutely any suggestions for improvement.
3. Any part of this book is less than crystal clear.
Here’s an anecdote about Richard Feynman, the great teacher and physicist:
Feynman was once asked by a Caltech faculty member to explain why spin
1/2 particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics. He gauged his audience perfectly
and said, “I’ll prepare a freshman lecture on it.” But a few days later he
returned and said, “You know, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t reduce it to
the freshman level. That means we really don’t understand it.”
4
I agree: If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well enough. And
as a corollary, the best way to gauge whether you understand something is to see if you
can explain it simply to someone else.
If at any point in this textbook, you have read the same passage a few times, tried to reason
it through, and still find things confusing, then it is a failure on MY part. Please let me
know and I will try to rewrite it so that it’s clearer. (There is also the possibility that I
simply messed up! So please let me know if there’s anything confusing!)
I deeply value any feedback, because I’d like to keep improving this textbook
for the benefit of everyone! I am very grateful to all the kind folks who’ve already
written in, allowing me to rid this book of more than a few embarrassing errors.
• LyX rocks!
5
This book was written using L X.
Y
• Is the font size big enough?
You’re probably reading this on some device. So I’ve tried to set the font sizes and stuff so
that one can comfortably read this on a device as small as a seven-inch tablet. It should
also be possible to read this on a phone, though somewhat less comfortably. (Please let me
know if you have any feedback about this!)
(I’ll probably be contacting some publishers to see if they want to do a print version of
this, for anyone who prefers it in print.)
4This quote or some similar variant is often (mis)attributed to Einstein. But as Einstein himself once said, “73% of Einstein
quotes are misattributed.”
5LATEX is the typesetting programme used by most economists and scientists. But LATEX can be difficult to use. LYX is a
user-friendly GUI version of LATEX. LYX has boosted my productivity by countless hours over the years and you should use
LYX too!
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Tips for the Student
• Read maths slowly.
Reading maths is not like reading Harry Potter. Most of Harry Potter is fluff. There is
little fluff in maths.
So go slowly. Dwell upon and carefully consider every sentence in this textbook. Make sure
you completely understand what each statement says and why it is true. Reading maths
is very different from reading any other subject matter.
If you don’t quite understand some material, you might be tempted to move forward anyway.
Don’t. In maths, later material usually builds on earlier material. So if you simply move
forward, this will usually cost you more time and frustration in the long run.
Better then to stop right there. Keep working on it until you “get” it. Ask a friend or
a teacher for help. Feel free to even email me! (I’m always interested to know what the
common points of confusion are and how I can better clear them up.)
• Examples and exercises are your best friends. So work through them.
A good stock of examples, as large as possible, is indispensable for a
thorough understanding of any concept, and when I want to learn something
new, I make it my first job to build one.
- Paul Halmos (1983, Google Books).
Work through all the examples and exercises. Merely moving your eyeballs is not the same
as working. Working means having pencil and paper by your side and going through each
example/exercise word-by-word, line-by-line.
2 2
For example, I might say something like “x y 0. Thus, x y x y 0.” If it’s not
− = ( − )( + ) =
obvious to you why the first sentence implies the second, stop right there and work on it
until you understand why. Don’t just let your eyeballs fly over these sentences and pretend
that your brain is “getting” it.
I will often not bother to explain some steps, especially if they simply involve some simple
algebra.
• You get a List of Formulae during the A-level exam.
It’s called List of Formulae MF26. It’s reproduced from p. 331 of this book and is also
available at this link (MF26). (I cannot guarantee though that your JC will give you the
List during your JC common tests and exams.)
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• Online Calculators
Google is probably the quickest for simple calculations. Type in anything into your
browser’s Google search bar and the answer will instantly show up:
Wolfram Alpha is somewhat more advanced (but also slower). Enter “sinx” for example
and you’ll get graphs, the derivative, the indefinite integral, the Maclaurin series, and a
bunch of other stuff you neither know nor care about.
The Derivative Calculator and the Integral Calculator are probably unbeatable for the
specific purposes of differentiation and integration. Both give step-by-step solutions for
anything you want to differentiate or integrate.
Here is a collection of spreadsheets I made. These spreadsheets are for doing tedious and
repetitive calculations that H2 Maths students (and hence also H1 Maths students) will
often encounter. As with anything I do, I welcome any feedback you may have about
these spreadsheets. Perhaps in the future I will make a more attractive version of it.
(Instructions: Click “Make a copy” to open up your own independent copy of
this spreadsheet. Enter your input in the yellow cells. Output is produced in
the blue cells. If you mess up anything, simply click the same link and “Make
a copy” again.)
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Use of Graphing Calculators
6
You are required to know how to use a graphing calculator.
This textbook will give only a very few examples involving graphing calculators.
There is no better way of learning to use it than to play around with it yourself. By the
time you sit down for your A-level exams, you should have had plenty of practice with it.
You can also use any of the seven calculators in the list below (last updated by SEAB
on March 1st, 2016, PDF). But this textbook will stick with the TI-84 PLUS Silver Edi-
tion (which I’ll simply call the TI84). (My understanding is that most students use a TI
calculator and that the five approved TI calculators are pretty similar.)
I’ll always start each example with the calculator freshly reset.
6Pretty bizarre that in this age of the smartphone, they want you to learn how to use these clunky and now-useless devices
from the ’80s and ’90s. It is the equivalent of learning to program a VCR.
IMHOit’dbemuchbettertoteachyoutosomesimpleprogrammingorExcel(orwhateverspreadsheetprogram). “B-b-but
... howwouldsuchlearningbetestedinanexamformat?” Ay,there’stherub. IntheSingaporeeducationsystem,anything
that cannot be “examified” is not worth learning.
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