STEP II 2012 discussion thread

I haven't done the whole paper (I only sat Step I) it's hard to say. The most important thing is: how close was your method to a correct method? This will probably reflect how many marks you gain/ lose. The answer itself and the odd algebraic slip won't cost more than 1 or 2 marks out of 20. But having the wrong approach could cost you 5+ instantly.

My understanding is that examiners really want full solutions, not fragments, and the papers can be marked accordingly. I'm not sure how linear it is to be honest, there's no set mark scheme... Also, when I replied I wasn't sure if he'd made the same mistake on every part or just on the last part.

STEP marking is down to the examiners view as far as I can tell. And a small error could be viewed as a massive error if the candidate's reasoning and workings aren't clear. One marker may interpret someone's work to be "excellent but there is an algebraic slip" (few marks lost), one marker may not think that the candidate understands the question or what to do and so gives very few marks. From what I gather, it sounds like a 16/20 if the other parts are correct.

It wouldn't surprise me if the examiners just have a few hours training to get used to the level STEP is at, and just mark based on a list of guidelines put together by the senior examiner rather than an objective mark scheme.

Certainly for the actual Tripos exams, they are a *lot* more linear than the exam rubric might indicate. I doubt the marking scheme's that different for STEP.

They are probably each worth about 10 marks.

Can't remember precisely, but I think STEP is marked by mathmos from Cambridge, like possibly the PHD students. Not sure about official mark schemes and guidelines though.

In the exam i got:

Q2: Got all of part one but i know i made a single mistake in the algebra in one line and I got about half of part (ii)
Q3: Had the right substitution for (i) but didnt see it to the end (for some reason) and then used the result given for part (i) to complete part (ii). Didnt do part (iii)
Q4: Finished it
Q5: Got all the graphs right except from one stupid mistake in one of the regions of the graphs
Q8: Done the first two "show that..." parts and then was have way through the equation that was equal to zero.
Q9: Only completed the first bit out of the three and started the second.

Is this good enough for a 1?

Sounds like you got about 80 which should definitely be a 1. Obviously it is not definite... but I would say very likely!

was the paper easier or harder than other ones? ive not really looked at what people thought and ive heard the boundaries are usually due to how everyone does?

was the paper easier or harder than other ones? ive not really looked at what people thought and ive heard the boundaries are usually due to how everyone does?

Guys for q2 I got the wrong p(x), as in I didn't get the ones with constants, as I just missed those solutions. The two I got were correctly derived however but you had to check to find out that they actually didn't work. It's pretty obvious I'm going to lose a few marks for this, but around how much would it be (if anyone has any idea). All parts leading up to that part I did correctly just fudged it a bit at the end.

This is pretty much what I did.

Kx^2 + kx + x = 0 so x=0 but obviously it doesn't take a genius to realise that is not the only solution. So in the end You should have got 4 polynomials, and then checked to discard two, I got only the ones that should have been discarded, however I did not check and discard them. This was also the final part of the question.

I just feel that if you make an algebraic error which meant your answer was very incomplete in a question that was pretty much just algebra it should cost you a lot.

Agreed - there was nothing conceptually difficult in this question and so there are few other places where marks can be lost (not discarding two of the solutions in part (ii) would be the other place)