Portals and Common First Years

You have passed a non-scientific general baccalaureate or a technological baccalaureate and you wish to study science. Today, only 10% of you succeed in the first year of your degree. The Year of Scientific Upgrading (AMNS) is made for you: you will have the knowledge expected to succeed, we will teach you the working methods necessary for higher scientific studies. During this refresher course, you will have the opportunity to acquire some of the general elements of the first year of your degree. As a result, the following year, during the L1, you will have a lighter schedule which will allow you to concentrate on the disciplinary teachings.

The year of scientific upgrading is not adapted to professional baccalaureate students, who will have great difficulty in keeping up if they enroll immediately after obtaining their baccalaureate.

We have an AMNS for the Pasteur portal and an AMNS for the Curie and Descartes portals.

• Take the time to assimilate the fundamental elements
• Acquire the methodology
• Reflect on your personal and professional project
• Experience active teaching methods

• Succeed in your scientific degree
• Be an actor in your training
• Gain self-confidence and autonomy
• Develop transversal skills: communication, initiative, creativity and teamwork
• Prepare for your future

Access to the university is via ParcourSup. You cannot apply directly to AMNS. You must apply to one of the scientific portals of AMU (Descartes, Curie or Pasteur). The AMNS is an arrangement of these portals intended to upgrade baccalaureate students who do not have the scientific prerequisites.

In concrete terms, you must add a wish to one of the portals to your list of wishes on Parcoursup.

The AMNS is described in the "Success/Outlet" tab of each of the portals. If you want to make sure you are offered the AMNS accommodation, just mention it in your education plan, but there is nothing special to check or do.

You will be able to choose the teaching site as a sub-vow. Please note that the AMNS Curie-Descartes is only offered at Aix-Montperrin and Marseille Saint-Charles (candidates who have made a sub-vow at Luminy or St-Jérôme will be sent to St-Charles) and the AMNS Pasteur is offered at Luminy and St-Charles (candidates who have made a sub-vow at Aix will be sent to St-Charles).

Once the wish is validated, you have to wait for the results of parcoursup to get the answer. If it is a "YES", you will go to L1. If it is a "YES IF", you will be offered the AMNS (or the L1-2ans or the L1consolidé).

Once you have accepted this proposal on ParcourSup, you will be able to register at the university here: https://pagesinterscol.univ-amu.fr/prod/acc_iaprimo.php.

During the AMNS you will be accompanied in your professional orientation by the teaching staff and the Service Universitaire d'Insertion et d'Orientation.

If you have more than 10/20 of general average at the AMNS, you will be able to integrate the first year of the portal corresponding to your registration within the Faculty of Sciences of AMU.

Of course, you can reorient yourself towards other courses by applying via parcoursup.

This preparatory year takes up the scientific program of the high school from the second to the last year of high school and approaches some additional notions to facilitate the insertion in L1 the following year. The following courses will be spread over 2 semesters (about 25h per week):

168h of math in AMNS Curie/Descartes or 148h of math in AMNS Pasteur :

• calculus in R: fractions, expansion/factorization, square roots, inequalities, intervals, absolute value, second degree equations, root of a polynomial
• vectors and plane geometry: vectors, Chasles relation, cartesian/polar coordinates, trigonometry, scalar product, orthogonality
• sequences: reasoning by recurrence, arithmetic/geometric sequences, monotonic sequences, limits of a sequence, Newton's binomial formula
• functions: usual functions (quadratic, cubic, inverse, square root, neperian logarithm, exponential, sine, cosine), domain of definition, limits, continuity, derivatives, study of functions
• primitives and integrals: calculation of primitives, integration by parts, calculation of areas
• probabilities and statistics: conditioning, independence, fluctuation interval, estimation
• complex numbers: algebraic form, trigonometric/exponential form, square roots, geometric representation (affix of a point, of a vector)

68h of physics in the two AMNS

• geometrical optics: plane/spherical mirrors, conjugation formulas, lenses, focus measurements, Bessel's method, association of lenses and mirrors, Descartes' law, plane/spherical diopters, prisms, the eye and the magnifying glass, optical devices
• wave phenomena: from ultrasound to light (interference/diffraction, acoustic wave, use of an oscilloscope, signal propagation, standing waves, Doppler effect, absorption of radiation, spectroscopies, electrical analogy)
• Newtonian physics: simple pendulum, damped pendulum, pendulum with viscous friction, horizontal/vertical spring, RLC circuit

68 hours of chemistry in both AMNS

• Structure of the atom, periodic table of elements, electronic configuration (first 3 periods)
• Chemical bonding, representation of molecules (rough, semi-developed, developed, topological formulas, CRAM representation, Lewis diagram), nomenclature of organic compounds, Z/E isomerism, basics of stereochemistry
• Amount of substance, molar mass
• Chemical reaction, equilibrium, reaction progress table, main classes of reactions in organic chemistry
• Solutions, solvent, phases, concentration
• Acids/bases
• redox reactions

54h of SVT in the AMNS Pasteur

• the diversity of the living world and the theories of evolution
• first approach to DNA/RNA: replication, transcription-maturation, mutation
• reproduction
• the cell and the cell cycle
• photosynthesis of the chlorophyll cell
• chloroplasts and mitochondria
• synthesis and consumption of glucose: Krebs cycle
• physical effort
• regulation of blood sugar
• regulation loop
• immune system: organs involved, mechanisms of struggle.
• solar system, planets
• terrestrial envelopes, plate tectonics
• rock cycle
• major stages in the history of the Earth
• dynamics of fluid envelopes

28 hours of university work methodology in both AMNS

• brain function and memory
• influence of the environment on learning, stereotype threat effect
• learning strategies
• note-taking
• concept maps
• summary note
• group work (jigsaw)
• critical thinking

84h of math/Phys/Chemistry for the AMNS Curie-Descartes

• the size of the structures of the universe, time and space scales
• color/spectroscopy: Wien Stephan's law, additive and subtractive synthesis, Beer-Lambert's law, IR/NMR spectra analysis, colored species in chemistry
• thermodynamics: heat capacity, latent heat/change of state, calorimetry, 1st law of Joule
• radioactivity: fission, decay/kinetics, fusion, nucleus cohesion energy
• Newtonian physics: Newton's laws, laws of gravitation, Kepler's laws, Cavendish balance, fields (gravity/magnetic/electric/electrostatic), free fall, inclined plane, parabolic motion, oscillating motion
• power/energy
• electrochemistry: battery/accumulator
• mathematical tools: power law, perimeter, area, volume, Neperian/decimal logarithm, differential and integral calculus, first order differential equations, exponential function, vector projection, scalar product, trigonometric functions, compound functions

84 hours of Chemistry/SVT for AMNS Pasteur

• classifications of the living world, phylogeny
• interactions between living beings, ecology, endangered biodiversity
• repoduction strategy of living beings
• materials of the Earth, notion of time and dating, reconstitution of past environments, major stages of the Earth's history
• major issues in geology
• chemistry of living molecules
• chemistry of the environment

24 hours of personal and professional project supervised in the two AMNS

20 hours of French (reading comprehension and written expression) in both AMNS

16 hours of scientific projects in the two AMNS

18 hours of English in both AMNS

10 hours of lectures on "Major ecological issues" in the AMNS Curie-Descartes