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The 2012 STEP Results Discussion Thread

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Original post by ben-smith
who is this?


your boy :sexface:
Original post by hassi94
The student said 'this one is impossible to integrate, actually so it's a bad example'.

I'm more alarmed by this than the rest of your post. :p: What was the integral, out of interest? (if you can remember...)

There's always a few who feel the need to correct everything when you're in a maths lecture - generally speaking, they tend to be incorrect too.
Original post by Rahul.S
your boy :sexface:


I thought he was your boy? :tongue:
Original post by hassi94
some kid interrupted and tried to correct lecturers like 5 times each lecture (incorrectly, most of the time) whilst reading a book about wars in judaism. Also likes to think out loud, loud enough for everyone to hear.

What really annoyed me is when we were in smaller groups with the current students on the last day. The student said 'this one is impossible to integrate, actually so it's a bad example'. Then i said 'no if you do this, then that, then that then it works fine'. And then this guy goes 'no no there is a much simpler way then that - you do this, then that, then that - very simple actually'.

What he failed to realise was he tried to correct me by saying exactly what i had just suggested.


leave it yh!
Original post by ben-smith
I thought he was your boy? :tongue:


in fact his no ones boy....except for those with offers from Selwyn :cool:
Original post by Rahul.S
in fact his no ones boy....except for those with offers from Selwyn :cool:


Any Christ's people?
Original post by ben-smith
Any Christ's people?


yh there was one (maybe more).....spoke to him when we shared the taxi to cambridge train station. got a 1,1 offer......I think most kids had either a 1,1 or 1,2 offer. magdalene however seemed to have given all their applicants a S,1 offer :s-smilie:

--I might attempt STEP III 2011 q5 as siklos already discussed it yesterday.....seemed quite interesting and its on geometry :biggrin:
Original post by Farhan.Hanif93
I'm more alarmed by this than the rest of your post. :p: What was the integral, out of interest? (if you can remember...)

There's always a few who feel the need to correct everything when you're in a maths lecture - generally speaking, they tend to be incorrect too.


Erm it was (2x-1)/(3x^2 + 7x + something constant)

I think.

Basically he wanted to get the numerator in a form of the derivative of the denominator. And then said 'this one doesn't work so we can't integrate it'.

So I suggested writing 1/3((6x+7)/whatever - 10/whatever) then complete the square on whatever and use a trig (or hyperbolic - didn't work it out) substitution (or just use one of the standard integrals in the formula booklet).

Sometimes he was just correcting things that everyone knew was wrong. Like one time he wrote an x where he meant to write n in one term and then didn't carry the error through (everyone could tell and didn't care) but he felt the need to tell everyone that he spotted it...

The student who said it can't be integrated I don't think paid much attention to it - I'm sure he'd know how to integrate it any other time.
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by hassi94
Erm it was (2x-1)/(3x^2 + 7x + something constant)

I think.

Basically he wanted to get the numerator in a form of the derivative of the denominator. And then said 'this one doesn't work so we can't integrate it'.

So I suggested writing 1/3((6x+7)/whatever - 10/whatever) then complete the square on whatever and use a trig (or hyperbolic - didn't work it out) substitution (or just use one of the standard integrals in the formula booklet).

Sometimes he was just correcting things that everyone knew was wrong. Like one time he wrote an x where he meant to write n in one term and then didn't carry the error through (everyone could tell and didn't care) but he felt the need to tell everyone that he spotted it...

The student who said it can't be integrated I don't think paid much attention to it - I'm sure he'd know how to integrate it any other time.

That would get irritating pretty quickly. You sound quite disappointed - were these situations more the exception than the rule? More importantly, did it feel like a worthwhile thing for you to attend?
Reply 1609
Reply 1612
Original post by hassi94
Erm it was (2x-1)/(3x^2 + 7x + something constant)

I think.

Basically he wanted to get the numerator in a form of the derivative of the denominator. And then said 'this one doesn't work so we can't integrate it'.

So I suggested writing 1/3((6x+7)/whatever - 10/whatever) then complete the square on whatever and use a trig (or hyperbolic - didn't work it out) substitution (or just use one of the standard integrals in the formula booklet).

Sometimes he was just correcting things that everyone knew was wrong. Like one time he wrote an x where he meant to write n in one term and then didn't carry the error through (everyone could tell and didn't care) but he felt the need to tell everyone that he spotted it...

The student who said it can't be integrated I don't think paid much attention to it - I'm sure he'd know how to integrate it any other time.


Sounds like a right ****.

Good thing Tempa T wasn't there... otherwise it'd be a: NEXT HYPE
Reply 1613
Original post by Rahul.S
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKymtdf_E5s&feature=related

go 4:00

remember watching this when I was like in y6 :tongue:


Back in the day.
Original post by hassi94
Erm it was (2x-1)/(3x^2 + 7x + something constant)

I think.

Basically he wanted to get the numerator in a form of the derivative of the denominator. And then said 'this one doesn't work so we can't integrate it'.

So I suggested writing 1/3((6x+7)/whatever - 10/whatever) then complete the square on whatever and use a trig (or hyperbolic - didn't work it out) substitution (or just use one of the standard integrals in the formula booklet).

Sometimes he was just correcting things that everyone knew was wrong. Like one time he wrote an x where he meant to write n in one term and then didn't carry the error through (everyone could tell and didn't care) but he felt the need to tell everyone that he spotted it...

The student who said it can't be integrated I don't think paid much attention to it - I'm sure he'd know how to integrate it any other time.


People like that tend to quieten down by their second term at university.
Original post by DFranklin
I think the overall difficulty has stayed pretty much the same - it feels to me the questions now are more consistent, so the easiest questions from 10 years ago are easier than the easiest now, and the hardest questions from 10 years ago are harder.

At the same time, the required scores have (generally) been creeping up, which would overall make things harder.

One thing that I think is a really significant change: back in 1987 there were no resources like TSR, or google. If you were in a typical comprehensive, you'd get 2 or 3 past papers for STEP (or the CCE), and you'd try to work out your own solutions. If you were good, you might find solutions to something like two thirds of the problems, but many wouldn't be optimal. There would be other questions that you just had no idea how to do, and you'd never find out. You'd be lucky to get feedback from a teacher who could actually judge what you were doing.

Now, you have many years of past papers available as well as multiple solutions to pretty much all the questions, and lots of sources for help

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). But I think it's pushed the boundaries up (*).

(*) Not to blow my own trumpet (and I don't think it was *just* me - I think it was a bit of a freak year), but the year I joined TSR, we had a concerted attack on the STEP papers from the 90's, and I did a lot of critiquing of solutions and explaining other methods etc. (unfortunately I don't have time for that now). The number of people on TSR getting S-grades that year was probably high enough to affect the overall boundaries.


You'd probably be the best person to ask this, I was told there used to be an exam called higher maths (I don't mean further maths). Is that the 501-504 you are referring to?
To the best of my memory, 501-503 were titled "Mathematics" and 504 "Further Mathematics", but it's possible 504 was "Higher Mathematics".

Someone posted a 504 paper here a couple of years ago, and I recall that, for example, there was a question that asked you to prove the Mobius inversion formula. That was something not covered in the Cambridge Maths degree until the 3rd year, (although, to be honest, there's no real reason it couldn't be taught in the first year).
Original post by Farhan.Hanif93
That would get irritating pretty quickly. You sound quite disappointed - were these situations more the exception than the rule? More importantly, did it feel like a worthwhile thing for you to attend?


Disappointed at the teaching? No not at all. It was very much an exception that the mentor made a mistake - I wasn't trying to emphasise on that :tongue:

It did feel worthwhile. It gave me some motivation, some interesting tips (probably things you probably know though, to be honest - but for me seeing people go through some STEP questions right there really did help me I think, I've become a bit more aware of general tricks to look for etc.) and made me realise there were plenty of people whom were worse than me which is always good haha...

Did help build up my confidence, and I feel I'm more clear on the path I'll be taking over the next couple of months so I'm happy. And if nothing else - there were plenty of awesome people to meet which was great :smile:
Original post by hassi94
Disappointed at the teaching? No not at all. It was very much an exception that the mentor made a mistake - I wasn't trying to emphasise on that :tongue:

It did feel worthwhile. It gave me some motivation, some interesting tips (probably things you probably know though, to be honest - but for me seeing people go through some STEP questions right there really did help me I think, I've become a bit more aware of general tricks to look for etc.) and made me realise there were plenty of people whom were worse than me which is always good haha...

Did help build up my confidence, and I feel I'm more clear on the path I'll be taking over the next couple of months so I'm happy. And if nothing else - there were plenty of awesome people to meet which was great :smile:

Sounds good to me. :smile:
Original post by DFranklin
To the best of my memory, 501-503 were titled "Mathematics" and 504 "Further Mathematics", but it's possible 504 was "Higher Mathematics".

Someone posted a 504 paper here a couple of years ago, and I recall that, for example, there was a question that asked you to prove the Mobius inversion formula. That was something not covered in the Cambridge Maths degree until the 3rd year, (although, to be honest, there's no real reason it couldn't be taught in the first year).


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, :colondollar:

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