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STEP Prep Thread 2016 (Mark. II)

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Original post by Zacken
Me irl


Loool it's nice to know others feel the same pain :biggrin: I bet tons of people experience this tbh, I don't get nervous doing an exam at home xD
Reply 1781
Original post by jjsnyder
How many marks would I lose for this(be as harsh as possible please I really don't want false hope of getting in):
Q2 Got the first part fine, second part I got the values but my factorisation or algebra must have been slightly incorrect as I got the wrong solutions.
Q3 got to the last part but for the n is even/odd I just checked the case n=2 and then used that to guess that it has no solutions when n is even and 1 when n is odd.
Q6 did it up to the last part but couldn't do any of the last part of the Q, did not even attempt it.
Q8 I got all of the last part wrong, but got the first part fine. My sketch was a little dodgy, dock a mark for that.
Q4 I got the first part, but not the deduce y^2 +1, then solved for y and showed the equality for y in the second part but did not find x or tan(theta).
I'm borderline and I really don't know what mark to give this. Think I am likely a high 2.


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Q6: drop 8.
Q4: drop 12 (that's what I'm doing for myself, since I did exactly the same as you).
Q3: drop 3.
Q8: drop 8.
Q2: Not sure what you mean by this? Did you do everything except for some slight arithmetic fail or...?
Any guesses on what I'd get for this?

Q 1: Got close to showing the intersection was on 4y^2 = 3x-1 but couldn't quite get through the algebra. Got the right conclusion about the curves touching, but from the wrong cubic (I forgot to square y). Sketched the correct shape of the graphs, but no coordinates for the points where they touched.

Q 3: Should be full, apart from I didn't justify the number of solutions for even n. Lovely question!

Q 5: Wrote down the first expression they asked for and then the sum.

Q 6: Did everything up to the last part. Tried the last part by replacing 2 with m in previous working, but didn't get anywhere.

Q 7: Hopefully got everything right up to (iv). In that part, got to the integral of 1/(sin x + cos x + 1) but didn't make a substitution to get further. May have made an arithmetic error in one of the previous parts.

Q 12: Full.
Original post by Zacken
Q6: drop 8.
Q4: drop 12 (that's what I'm doing for myself, since I did exactly the same as you).
Q3: drop 3.
Q8: drop 8.
Q2: Not sure what you mean by this? Did you do everything except for some slight arithmetic fail or...?


Yeah everything apart from some slight arithmetic slips, I'm guessing 16 marks for this myself, thanks will total that up


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Reply 1784
Original post by jjsnyder
Yeah everything apart from some slight arithmetic slips, I'm guessing 16 marks for this myself, thanks will total that up


16 is too much. Go for 17/18.

Btw, did you do Q7?
Original post by Zacken
16 is too much. Go for 17/18.

Btw, did you do Q7?


Thanks :smile:


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Reply 1786


Sounds like you got ~80, higher than me at least. I'm not sure what you're worried about? :tongue:
Reply 1787
Original post by sweeneyrod
Any guesses on what I'd get for this?

Q 1: Got close to showing the intersection was on 4y^2 = 3x-1 but couldn't quite get through the algebra. Got the right conclusion about the curves touching, but from the wrong cubic (I forgot to square y). Sketched the correct shape of the graphs, but no coordinates for the points where they touched.

Q 3: Should be full, apart from I didn't justify the number of solutions for even n. Lovely question!

Q 5: Wrote down the first expression they asked for and then the sum.

Q 6: Did everything up to the last part. Tried the last part by replacing 2 with m in previous working, but didn't get anywhere.

Q 7: Hopefully got everything right up to (iv). In that part, got to the integral of 1/(sin x + cos x + 1) but didn't make a substitution to get further. May have made an arithmetic error in one of the previous parts.

Q 12: Full.


15 + 18 + 10(?) + 12/13 + 17 + 20 = ~92+
Anyone else done STEP III 2009 and found it really easy? I've never gotten a 1 in STEP III before, wondering if it was just an easier paper? I think I did so well because I could answer 4 fulls without doing any FM content :biggrin:
Original post by ComputerMaths97
Anyone else done STEP III 2009 and found it really easy? I've never gotten a 1 in STEP III before, wondering if it was just an easier paper? I think I did so well because I could answer 4 fulls without doing any FM content :biggrin:


easiest paper of the recents yeah
Original post by Zacken
15 + 18 + 10(?) + 12/13 + 17 + 20 = ~92+


Definitely need that question mark after 10, I think it'll be more like 3 at best (it took about 2 minutes). But even without that, I've pretty definitely got a 1 by your reckoning, so thanks!
Original post by ComputerMaths97
Anyone else done STEP III 2009 and found it really easy? I've never gotten a 1 in STEP III before, wondering if it was just an easier paper? I think I did so well because I could answer 4 fulls without doing any FM content :biggrin:


Defo easy, I got 11 marks higher than in any other III paper. Still impressive to get a 1 though, since the grade boundaries went up to compensate.
Reply 1792
Original post by sweeneyrod
But even without that, I've pretty definitely got a 1 by your reckoning, so thanks!


Yep, congratulations. :smile:
Original post by sweeneyrod
Defo easy, I got 11 marks higher than in any other III paper. Still impressive to get a 1 though, since the grade boundaries went up to compensate.


Ahaha thanks :biggrin: No I always seem to do incredibly well in the easier papers (Like in STEP I mocks I always got a 1 or a 2, but in the higher grade boundary ones I got a couple S's) and incredibly badly in the harder papers. Maybe that's just down to not enough practice. Imagine my results are 3,3,1 looool.
Original post by sweeneyrod
Don't diss Homerton, it gives you the opportunity of being the first person ever in your college to get a first


PRSOM
Original post by Zacken
Sounds like you got ~80, higher than me at least. I'm not sure what you're worried about? :tongue:


Q3/8 I am sure I drop way more marks then that :/ I thought I've got like 70.


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Original post by ComputerMaths97
Ahaha thanks :biggrin: No I always seem to do incredibly well in the easier papers (Like in STEP I mocks I always got a 1 or a 2, but in the higher grade boundary ones I got a couple S's) and incredibly badly in the harder papers. Maybe that's just down to not enough practice. Imagine my results are 3,3,1 looool.


That would be an interesting set of results. Have you done III 2003? It was the first paper I ever did, and the easiest.
Reply 1797
Original post by jjsnyder
Q3/8 I am sure I drop way more marks then that :/ I thought I've got like 70.


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No way. What's your mark breakdown? How on earth are you cutting yourself so many marks for a small 2 mark slip in Q3?

Also, I did worse than you in Q8, so if you dropped that many marks, then I'm sitting at ~60.
Original post by sweeneyrod
That would be an interesting set of results. Have you done III 2003? It was the first paper I ever did, and the easiest.


Yeah was one of my first too (started at 2000) but I only got a 3. I'm okay with that considering it was one of my first. Back then I never got a full solution :biggrin: I haven't had a sinlge full solution in the real exams yet. I usually get 2's and 3's in III so this 1 came as a shock tbh.
Could you please estimate how many marks I would have gotten on this paper please?
2.Full
3. Every part but slightly poor explanation of 1 root for odd n, everything else perfect.
4. Didn't show the second inequality and didn't find X or tan theta at the end. All else done.
7. All complete up to last part, got the integral to be of form 1/cosx(cosx+sinx) couldn't see way from there.
11. Did up to last part where I couldn't explain why alpha>beta

Either Q8 or Q9 depending on which has a higher mark
8. Evaluated the first parts correctly. For the evaluations of Es I simply substituted in different values of m into 2/2m-1 that gave the correct Es so probably not correct. Then showed the error to be 1/4r^4.
9. Did part i)

Thanks in advance for your help

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