'Miss, why do we have to learn this!?'

This was a common exclamation in the maths classroom when I was at school a few years ago. I've always been interested in maths and, as a result, I used to read books far beyond what we were learning at school. The title may seem a valid question at first sight, but students should understand that maths is a progressive subject. If it seems pointless at first to learn something, or if you're just given a formula without any justification, it is because to justify it requires a skill in maths beyond what you are learning currently. In other words, just accept what your (often not so reassuring) teacher is telling you for now (as hard as that is I know, because it can get frustrating!) because you will see that in 'A' Level and beyond, all becomes clear and the different areas of mathematics seem to be unified.

For instance, trigonometry. When you're bombarded with sin, cos and tan and asked to find an angle given two sides, you think, and rightly so, 'when will I ever need to find angles in a triangle??'. But trigonometry is used heavily in science and engineering e.g. for motion, force, vectors and waves. The study of our old friends sin, cos and tan go a lot further than one thinks.

Despite my studying chemistry, the most enthusing subject is mathematics, as perhaps everything can be understood using numbers, and this becomes more apparent as your studies become more intense. So stick with it, it truly is fascinating!