STEP II 2011 Discussion Thread

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So yeah I completely failed it. Only question I completed was question 1 and my graph had 6 interceptgs, with 4 being the same and 2 being the other. I got -3 and 2.2 for the intercepts but I forgot to check if they actually satisfied the original. I wasn't sure whether we had to consider plus or minus square roots so took both just in case.

For question 2 I did part i, I got x = 1, y = 19 and z = 7. It took me aaaages to show x cubed was less than k.

For question 3 I think it was, I got stuck on showing that arcsinx/x >= xcosec x

The integration question was WTF. I didn't even attempt any more questions than that FML.

Argh I got 2, 18, 7. Forgot to divide by two :angry:

Reply 21

tobyc

Original post by Webbykun

For question 3 I think it was, I got stuck on showing that arcsinx/x >= xcosec x

That's what really stumped me, it would be good if someone could say how you're supposed to do this part. I picked that question first, because I could see how to do the first two parts, but that was a big mistake really because I had to abandon it half way through which wasn't a great start to the exam.

Reply 22

Schnecke

Original post by Bork

No... the invigilator took it away as with any other exam.
Possible you can scan it?
I floundered on 6, tried it for about 15 minutes but didn't get anywhere.
Tried integration by parts and substitution a few times then gave up.

Sorry I don't have a scanner :frown:

Reply 23

anttooking

I think I have done 1,2 completly. (Checked answers on computer and Wolfram Alpha) I did most of the Summation one (part i,ii and most of iii) and I got up to x*cosec(x) >= SOMETHING. I also did a tiny bit of probability and played around with the integral.

What could I have got? Anychance of a 1? Or am i looking at a 3.

Reply 24

Phil_Waite

That was the hardest STEP II paper I've ever seen, for the pure questions at least. I panicked as I couldn't get the end of my second question to work, and it all went downhill from there.

Reply 25

Piecewise

Original post by Schnecke

Sorry I don't have a scanner :frown:

How did you get hold of it, if you don't mind me asking?

Reply 26

jameswhughes

Does anyone on here think it went well for them? I'll be lucky if I get a 3 :rolleyes:

Reply 27

soczek322

question 9 had to be done by everyone.... it was just m2? Except the last bit which I couldn't explain?

Reply 28

Zuzuzu

2) Did it all apart from the last bit.
3) Did it all.
1) Drew the graph, got bogged down in algebra - gave up.
4) Did the very, very, very first bit, couldn't solve the cubic - solved it later at home (would have had a full solution if i'd have realised 8/2^3 was 1 and not 2). :frown:

8) Did it all within about 5 minutes at the end, would be surprised if I got more than 2 marks though, as I havent covered that stuff in school. :/
10) Did the first bit.

Reply 29

Schnecke

Original post by Piecewise

How did you get hold of it, if you don't mind me asking?

The invigilator made a big think of the fact I was allowed to take it home. At the start of the exam she even made a bedtime reading joke... I'll try and upload some pics of it.

Reply 30

Farhan.Hanif93

Here's a couple that I can remember well enough. I ended up doing all the multiples of 3 completely, plus just over 2/3 of the way through Q2 and got a fragment out of Q1 (maybe 4-5 marks). I haven't bothered to post Q3 because it was long (in fact, I made a bad decision to attempt it; even though I finished it, it had taken almost an hour...) and involved a lot of graphs. Q9 was just about algebra, which makes it harder for me to remember my working unless I write it out on paper again. I feel sorry for those of you who didn't attempt it; it was by far the easiest question on the paper!

As for the paper, it was reasonably harder than the last 2 or 3 STEP II papers, although I don't think it was as scary as the hype in the examiners report.

Q6 - Integration by parts

Q10 - Projectiles

Q12 - X vs Y tennis match

Good luck for STEP III everyone! :smile:

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 31

Webbykun

Original post by tobyc

I think you had to look at the rate of change of the rate of change, but I just couldn't be bothered slogging through it my soul was crushed.

Reply 32

hello dave

Yeah, I sat paper 2 yesterday, and am doing Step 1 Friday, I need a 1 in that so Step 2 was really a back up.

I'm not that strong at STEP II really I don't think, I answered qu 1 and 6 in the pure, the mechanics questions on the projection and the one on two particles colliding and the Stats question involving the Match between the Xaris and Yarvis or something strange like that.

I probably got between 80-90% of the way there on all the questions, and I think I fully completed the two mechanics questions, but no telling what mistakes I made. I have no idea what grade that would be, although I'm praying for a 2. I thought the pure questions were nastier then normal, question 1 was fairly standard but I answered it last and I think i messed up the second graph sketch a bit. Question 6 the integration one you had to find a standard result, then apply it two other questions? I got a standard result, tested it and found it was slightly wrong but couldnt for the life of me find how, it was so close, so I gave up and then just used it regardless on the other two parts so I don't know if I'll get any marks for them..

Reply 33

boffintim

I did question 1 and question 2 apart from finding the numerical values in the middle part, where x = 1, y = 19 and z = 7, I got z = 7 but it just wasn't working when I tried putting it back in. I also didn't manage (or didn't really bother, rather) proving that z^3 was less than k^2 or whatever it was. I did manage to get x = 8, y = 1 and z = 3 for the last part though. Then I partially did questions 3, 4, 6 and 7. Some were more "partial" than others.

I also got a root11 in my answer to question one so that seems promising at least.

Reply 34

Piecewise

Original post by Schnecke

At the start of the exam she even made a bedtime reading joke...

Reply 35

cazzy-joe

Biggest giant flop for me :frown:

Would be amazed (and have all other shocked expressions on my face) if I get a 3 :frown:

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 36

DFranklin

For arcsin x / x > x cosec x, can someone tell me the range you needed to prove this over?

Reply 37

Bork

Original post by DFranklin

For arcsin x / x > x cosec x, can someone tell me the range you needed to prove this over?

0 < x < 1

Reply 38

soczek322

Could anyone please remind me what the last part of question 1 was?

Reply 39

AnonyMatt

I tried 1,2,3,6,9,12 I think...

1 - did part i, my graph is incorrect (slightly) although it was easy to show x+1 had only one intersection. Couldn't find the point of intersection - I made a quartic but neither 1 nor -1 worked and I couldn't be bothered to try anything else 'cause I was in a bad mood. :p:

2 - Surprisingly, I got quite far. I purposely avoided this until the final hour, because I'm not good with numerical questions. I showed the inequality for z^3, but fell down finding values. Using the restrictions, z = 5,6,7, but then for it to be a perfect square, I got z = 7, but then my values for x were 1 and 16, which confused me because why did we have to write the cubes up to 10 if there were going to be values greater than it? Then I couldn't get y because any way I did it, y < x, which is a contradiction! I couldn't find where my workings obviously went wrong. Didn't get to attempt part ii.

3 - I think it was 3, I mean the increasing functions. It was fine until I got to the xcosecx one, where I couldn't show whatever we needed to (I got to a point where I had to show xcotx < 1, but couldn't do it) - I was flumoxed.

6 - I fully completed this, but it was the only one and I think I did it wrong. I wasted huge amounts of time on this. First I tried integrating the expression for f''(x), but then I did IBP with u = [f'(x)]^2, v' = [f(x)]^n, and got a really BIG result! I carried on anyway, and my verification worked! Except it didn't - I lost a factor of 2, although now I think maybe they wanted you to find k (if k = 2, then my verification works) but I thought that k was any constant, and maybe it is.
Now, here's where I got SO pissed off. I KNOW to ALWAYS check for derivatives in integrals, but I wanted to wrap up the question quickly with no time wasted, so I thought secx + tanx will never derive to anything I want, so I expanded the brackets binomially and integrated each term separately - I thought this was right because I was making use of sec^2 = tan^2 + 1, and the result I found, but then I realised I couldn't integrate sec^6 or tan^6. Just for kicks I differentiated secx + tanx - it gives secx(secx + tanx) - allowing you to use the rule with n = 4. I was livid. The answer falls out immediately, meaning I wasted 20mins for nothing.

9 - I found the speeds, but then I couldn't make sense of the question. Pretty stupid of me to attempt it without reading the entire question first.

12 - I was so mad. I could 'get' the situation, but I couldn't get the series to cancel down. Perhaps I didn't understand the matches right...

I was really mad at 13 because I wanted a question like it, but I don't know how to describe skewness (I've never looked at it officially) so I ignored it until the last 5mins. I realised when the time ran out that I'd probably have been able to finish the question actually, with marks penalised for ignoring the first sentence and not describing what is meant by skewness!

So yeah, possible 1 complete with errors - 16 marks
1 more half complete with errors - 8 marks
4 more started but little to no continuation - 4 x 2 = 8
= 32 marks, maximum tbh. YAY!