The big fat STEP megathread (NOT for getting help with maths questions)

Reply 180

wonderwall 124

pyrolol

3 hours. Google stepmathematics for this and other simple information.

Idid look for this information on their website but couldn't find it. Thanks anyway... :smile:

Reply 181

harr

15

124 wonderwall

Idid look for this information on their website but couldn't find it. Thanks anyway... :smile:

If you want to check the lengths of other exams, it usually says on the front of the paper. Links to past papers are often obvious, so this can be quicker than trawling through the more obscure pages of the website.

Reply 182

wonderwall 124

harr

If you want to check the lengths of other exams, it usually says on the front of the paper. Links to past papers are often obvious, so this can be quicker than trawling through the more obscure pages of the website.

I guess your correct. Even so on the step info website linked from cambridge university's mathematics department, the past papers contained did not include the time limits (guess they must have been removed) http://www.admissionstests.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/adt/step/Test+Preparation?primaryNodeId=101874 . Even so i understand fully what you are saying is accurate. I realised the specification was on the same page just now... silly me.

Reply 183

harr

15

124 wonderwall

I guess your correct. Even so on the step info website linked from cambridge university's mathematics department, the past papers contained did not include the time limits (guess they must have been removed) http://www.admissionstests.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/adt/step/Test+Preparation?primaryNodeId=101874 . Even so i understand fully what you are saying is accurate. I realised the specification was on the same page just now... silly me.

It seems that they've changed the website since I last went on it (I luckily don't have to worry about STEP anymore). It's annoying that they've removed bits of the papers, but atleast most websites won't do it for most exams.

Reply 184

Dystopia

10

The 2008 papers, answers and Examiners' Report is available on the official website here (it's all in the zip file).

Reply 185

SimonM

OP

18

Gah! Talk about strange comments about the inequalities question in STEP I.

Reply 186

DFranklin

18

I hope they won't repeat the approach they took with setting/marking those inequality questions; I don't think people should be losing marks because they failed to guess exactly what approach the examiner was looking for.

[Disclaimer: I don't remember exactly what I did when working through the questions, but I think both my solutions would have lost marks. But in neither case do I think they would have deserved to: as the examiners note, "show similarly" is horribly vague for the STEP I question, and at the end of the day you can always "force" a direct proof to be a proof by contradiction. (At the end of the day, "Suppose P(x,y,z) is false. But {stuff}, so P(x,y,z) is true. So our initial assumption must have been false.").

Reply 187

Dystopia

10

Hmm, it looks like whoever was writing the Examiners' Report must have got increasingly bored with doing so:

STEP I: 10 pages
STEP II: 5 pages
STEP III: 2 pages

:curious:

Reply 188

DFranklin

18

Dystopia

Hmm, it looks like whoever was writing the Examiners' Report must have got increasingly bored with doing so:

STEP I: 10 pages
STEP II: 5 pages
STEP III: 2 pages

:curious:

I think each is written by a different person. For 2007, the STEP II report was much more detailed than for either I or III (in general 2007 was a lot less detailed too).

Also interesting to see the examiners' solutions too.

Reply 189

Zhen Lin

12

Regarding STEP II:
* "The questions on this paper in recent years have been designed to be a little more accessible to all top A-level students"
* "With this greater emphasis on accessibility"

I wonder if there is a reason why they want to increase accessibility, and if it has anything to do with the change of the standard offer to 11?

Reply 190

SimonM

OP

18

What did it used to be Zhen?

Reply 191

Zhen Lin

12

Apparently there used to be more/mainly 12 offers.

Reply 192

DFranklin

18

Zhen Lin

Regarding STEP II:
* "The questions on this paper in recent years have been designed to be a little more accessible to all top A-level students"
* "With this greater emphasis on accessibility"

I wonder if there is a reason why they want to increase accessibility,

I would guess there may be three things going on. Firstly, it's just easier to allocate grades if the scores are fairly uniformly spread, so there's some logic in making it easier for people to at least get started on questions. Secondly, it must be said that the new A-levels have reduced people's familiarity with answering a question without being lead through it, so they may have needed to compensate. Thirdly, and more speculatively, they may want to have STEP II no longer seen as "an exam you only take if you're applying to Cambridge". After all, the AEA is going away, more and more universities are finding AAA isn't enough to distinguish candidates, so...

and if it has anything to do with the change of the standard offer to 11?

Who knows?

Reply 193

Zhen Lin

12

DFranklin

I would guess there may be three things going on. Firstly, it's just easier to allocate grades if the scores are fairly uniformly spread, so there's some logic in making it easier for people to at least get started on questions. Secondly, it must be said that the new A-levels have reduced people's familiarity with answering a question without being lead through it, so they may have needed to compensate. Thirdly, and more speculatively, they may want to have STEP II no longer seen as "an exam you only take if you're applying to Cambridge". After all, the AEA is going away, more and more universities are finding AAA isn't enough to distinguish candidates, so...

Mmm, that certainly is plausible. It should be interesting to see how the standard offer of places such as Imperial evolves over the next few years, what with the new A* grade and, as you mentioned, the AEA being retired.

Reply 194

Hashshashin

13

Zhen Lin

Mmm, that certainly is plausible. It should be interesting to see how the standard offer of places such as Imperial evolves over the next few years, what with the new A* grade and, as you mentioned, the AEA being retired.

I think it's likely Warwick will place more and more emphasis on STEP grades in future years. As they've abolished the AAAA offer and the AEA is being discontinued, they'll only have their AAB2 offer left - and considering how they seem to be getting more and more applications each year, I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years that offer became AAB1, or alternatively AAB2 sitting STEP II.

Reply 195

Kolya

17

STEP I is the exam closest to an AEA replacement though, so it's not clear why they would push STEP II in the same direction.

Reply 196

DFranklin

18

Well, STEP II isn't really any harder than STEP I (*), IMHO, it just requires a slightly broader knowledge base. Given the other universities asking for STEP would generally want candidates to have FM A-level, that's probably an advantage. I think there's also some advantage to asking people to do two exams (if only to counteract the "I had an off day" effect).

But as I said, it was a pretty speculative suggestion.

(*) I just dug out the spec from the website:

Cambridge Assessment

The syllabus for STEP I and STEP II is based on A level content whilst the syllabus for STEP III is based on Further Mathematics A level. The questions on STEP II and STEP III are the same difficulty and harder than those in STEP I

Anyone here agree with that? It seems to me that (a) the difference in difficulty between STEP I and STEP II is fairly marginal, and (b) STEP III is significantly more difficult than STEP II (slightly compensated by having lower grade boundaries). And how it could be claimed that Q1 STEP III 2008 was based on Further Mathematics is beyond me...

Reply 197

pyrolol

DFranklin

Anyone here agree with that? It seems to me that (a) the difference in difficulty between STEP I and STEP II is fairly marginal, and (b) STEP III is significantly more difficult than STEP II (slightly compensated by having lower grade boundaries). And how it could be claimed that Q1 STEP III 2008 was based on Further Mathematics is beyond me...

Almost, actually. In this years papers, I did better (in mark) in II, although slightly better boundary wise in III, but in the 2007 papers (which I did a couple of weeks before, and generally found much better), I suspect my raw mark for the III would have been higher than that of II. (I'm reasonably trusting of my estimates, I was about 4 marks wrong (in opposite directions) for each of the papers I actually sat.)

Reply 198

Swayum

18

DFranklin

Anyone here agree with that? It seems to me that (a) the difference in difficulty between STEP I and STEP II is fairly marginal, and (b) STEP III is significantly more difficult than STEP II (slightly compensated by having lower grade boundaries). And how it could be claimed that Q1 STEP III 2008 was based on Further Mathematics is beyond me...

Yeah, I read that as well a few months ago, but TSR opinion is a lot different.

Personally, I agree wih Cambridge Assessment. I think the jump from STEP I to II is actually quite large in terms of accessbility - if you know the syllabus well, having done 1 or 2 papers, STEP I questions become quite doable (not saying that you can do 13/13 questions on every paper, but like 2 or 3 which is alright). But STEP II questions are just set out a lot differently in my opinion. Regarding STEP III, I always thought it'd be a lot harder so I never bothered with it at all, but having looked at one or two papers in the past few days, my performance on II seems to be almost identical to my performance on III, which implies a higher grade on III because its boundaries are usually lower.

If they've increased STEP II's accessbility lately, then it's made up by the higher boundaries lately as well.

Reply 199

harr

15

DFranklin

Anyone here agree with that? It seems to me that (a) the difference in difficulty between STEP I and STEP II is fairly marginal, and (b) STEP III is significantly more difficult than STEP II (slightly compensated by having lower grade boundaries).

When practicing I found STEP II to be significantly harder than STEP I, but then you've done far more papers than me so can perhaps judge better. I think it's more that the papers have different types of questions and that I found the STEP I tended to have more questions on topics with which I was more comfortable. I still found II to III a bigger step up though and was surprised that I was only one grade lower on it (but that was again due familiarity with topics rather than any inherent difficulty).

The big fat STEP megathread (NOT for getting help with maths questions)

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