The 2012 STEP Results Discussion Thread

Overall, I think this is great - I feel it has definitely levelled the playing field compared with when I did the exams, and you'd be competing against private/grammar schools that had specific classes for CCE preparation (and sl e of these schools would have libraries of past-papers/worked solutions going back decades).

FYI, the guy who told me this is in his early 50s, if that's any help.

BTW, how much harder is BMO compared to STEP and if someone is a member of the BMO, how much of a stretch is a degree? Why not go straight into a PhD, without a first degree, which I believe is legal.

STEP<BMO<IMO so how can anyone "teach" an IMO candidate,

But if you go back another ten years (I took the entrance exam in '73) all state school applicants would have been at state grammar schools which would have the skills to prepare them for what was then a seventh-term exam. Compared with that system, I find the current way of doing things very discriminatory.

What is 'the seventh term' and 'the fourth term'? I don't understand how its possible to have a 'pre-A Level' applicant

FYI, the guy who told me this is in his early 50s, if that's any help.

BTW, how much harder is BMO compared to STEP and if someone is a member of the BMO, how much of a stretch is a degree? Why not go straight into a PhD, without a first degree, which I believe is legal.

STEP<BMO<IMO so how can anyone "teach" an IMO candidate,

I'm curious though, whether in an essay based subject, some young prodigy has gone straight to a PhD? I'm guessing not, for the same reasons as in maths, you still need to learn the theory and ideas of scholars past.

You can't be a member of the BMO...and it's hardly preparation for a degree doing it

I'm curious though, whether in an essay based subject, some young prodigy has gone straight to a PhD? I'm guessing not, for the same reasons as in maths, you still need to learn the theory and ideas of scholars past.

I still need to prepare for STEP how hard is it to achieve a 2?

BMO/IMO is a very different type of exam than STEP, so it's hard to compare. I think in all the BMO questions I've seen, I've only been able to do one or two completely unaided. (Then I looked up the AM-GM inequality and a few more yielded). I've only ever looked at one IMO paper and was dead proud to be able to do one question pretty easily (it's the one with the windmill, that question is not hard ). I'm going to guess that is an anomaly. The aim is to stretch the brightest, not to teach them mathematics.

The stuff you learn at university is very different - of course, many of those who do well at IMO/BMO do exceptionally well at university, but its definitely not a given. Everyone is different and they take to the more abstract way of thinking at university in different ways.

Finally, it should be fairly obvious that the skills to excel at a PhD/research problem are different. Being able to produce a clever trick to solve a BMO problem is one thing, but being able to hack away at a problem which could take years to yield is quite another. How can someone with no training in mathematics straight from a very narrow syllabus cope with a PhD? They wouldn't even be able to understand the problem!

I'm curious though, whether in an essay based subject, some young prodigy has gone straight to a PhD? I'm guessing not, for the same reasons as in maths, you still need to learn the theory and ideas of scholars past.



What is 'the seventh term' and 'the fourth term'? I don't understand how its possible to have a 'pre-A Level' applicant

I'm beginning to agree that going to a grammar school probably aided my education (as much as I hated that school). Thinking about the AEA, I wasn't really shocked or surprised by the sort of questions - in fact they seemed run-of-the-mill. And thinking about it, that was because we were given tests every week and the school must've slipped in old S-Level questions. They definitely wanted to push us (oddly I never felt very pushed, and hated the whole test a week thing) but it was a world apart from the comprehensive I went to for GCSEs.

But the grammar school didn't really do much beyond give us the test. Solutions were never given (we would have to work it out for ourselves), and STEP class was apparently someone giving out a few years past papers and then saying go get going. But the fact there was a STEP class to begin with is much more than most people got in 2002... There definitely wasn't even any recognition for performance in the AEA. We discussed it in our first week in Year 13 and all I got was 'well it was a good thing we know how to recognise potential'.

I think he meant British IMO team

But if you go back another ten years (I took the entrance exam in '73) all state school applicants would have been at state grammar schools which would have the skills to prepare them for what was then a seventh-term exam. Compared with that system, I find the current way of doing things very discriminatory.

Excuse my ignorance, (I was only in the Hans Woyda London Maths competition!) but if one is in the BMO team, that means they're representing the UK in the IMO?

The BMO is just an exam really. So there's no such thing as BMO team (I don't think - it's specifically the British team for the IMO) and you certainly can't be 'a member of the BMO' because that's like being 'a member of the STEP'.

So how do you do the BMO, (you just submit an application like STEP?) and how is Britain represented in the IMO? Who gets to choose who gets into the team or is it based on the results of the BMO?

So how do you do the BMO, (you just submit an application like STEP?) and how is Britain represented in the IMO? Who gets to choose who gets into the team or is it based on the results of the BMO?

I've only ever looked at one IMO paper and was dead proud to be able to do one question pretty easily (it's the one with the windmill, that question is not hard ).

By all means IMO questions are interesting, and by no means going to the IMO should be your top priority, necessarily.

I know a guy who few years ago won a Gold medal, absolute ranking 1 (with 100%), went to Harvard for Maths with Economics, and left after bachelors to become Economist.
This olympiad does not show that you have a passion for Maths, or even that you'll be a great mathematician -- all it shows is potential and how good olympiad training is.

However, it is the best marketplace for young mathematicians. If you want to sell yourself, that's the place. Simple.