The 2012 STEP Results Discussion Thread

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Yes, you are right.

by looking at the diagram we can see that for any angle t, f(t) is the largest stick that could be put in the corridor at that angle. So when we find the minimum of f(t) and rearrange for t, we find the angle that minimises the "longest possible" stick that can be put in the corridor at any angle.

Thus f(t) at that particular t is the longest possible stick passable through though corridor. This is because a stick that is passable through the corridor can be put in the corridor at any angle t with (90>t>0).

But you probably knew that anyway :P, and probably didn't really need the lengthy explanation.

Thank you that's fab...I needed some reassurance and your explanation was great :smile:

The lack of confidence in my mathematical ability is proving to be a major problem with STEP.

Reply 1241

Dirac Spinor

Starting to get a bit worried about the speed at which I do STEP Qs :frown:

On the upside, went to Roger Penrose's lecture :biggrin:

Reply 1242

username219321

Original post by shamika

Where it asked you to explain briefly why P(n) tends to a limit? I can't see any other way of doing that. I think you would've got a smile from the person marking if you wrote that - I'm guessing most people under exam conditions would've struggled to articulate that if they didn't know the result.

In that particular case, I think that bit would be worth only 1 mark and they would accept pretty much anything. I don't really like STEP questions to do with limits because of not actually having a definition of limit at that stage.

Reply 1243

shamika

Original post by matt2k8

Yep, agreed

Reply 1244

zuzia.kru

Hi everybody!
I'm almost sure that I looked for any thread about STEP in the January and couldn't find any...and today I accidentaly come accross that one...
So I downloaded the Megapack (which seems to be very useful since until now I downloaded each year's papers separately, thanks!) and now I'm really happy that there are other people who seem to be as stressed about step as I am :P
I hope we'll all meet our offers and meet in Cambridge
:smile:

thanks again

Reply 1245

username937760

Hi, I'm a current Year 12 Student and have a couple of questions to ask. Did any of you feel the need to learn various parts of Maths extra curricularly order to tackle certain questions properly? If so, can you recommend places to do this extra reading? I've started reading around STEP fairly early, but because I've only covered half of the total A Level curriculum chunks of STEP I and II and virtually the entirety of STEP III is alien to me. I've downloaded the STEP megapack as well as both of Stephen Siklos' booklets, and plan on sitting all three papers next year regardless of whether I get an offer from Cambridge/Warwick, because they're a lot more interesting than typical A Level style questions.

Thanks. :smile:

Reply 1246

f1mad

Original post by Rahul.S

...

Forgot about the bull crap we were discussing the other day.

:colone:

Spoiler

Reply 1247

f1mad

Original post by DFranklin

(And given the lamentable margin sizes on typical answer booklets, good luck with fitting that proof in...)

Had to get that one in didn't ya :tongue:

.

+rep

Reply 1248

Rahul.S

Original post by f1mad

Forgot about the bull crap we were discussing the other day.

:colone:

Spoiler

thats ded fam.....devilman has been passenger since day when skepta buried him in lotm....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqVMpsbwi90&feature=relmfu

go around 16:00 for SKEPTA......devilman got rinsed!

some of his bars remind me of my childhood :colondollar:

o well back to STEP :colone:

Reply 1249

gff

Original post by ben-smith

On the upside, went to Roger Penrose's lecture :biggrin:

How was it?

Original post by f1mad

Spoiler

Was ist das? Rachmaninoff and Beethoven are bett'er. No, seriously. :biggrin:

Reply 1250

f1mad

Original post by gff

How was it?

Was ist das? Rachmaninoff and Beethoven are bett'er. No, seriously. :biggrin:

Bach is beast!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnf5ceGLN94

Reply 1251

f1mad

Original post by Rahul.S

...

Clear your inbox.

Reply 1252

Rahul.S

Original post by f1mad

Clear your inbox.

done

Reply 1253

Rahul.S

Original post by f1mad

Clear your inbox.

empty brah

Reply 1254

f1mad

Original post by Rahul.S

empty brah

Done boss.

Reply 1255

ian.slater

Original post by DJMayes

If you take C1-C4 in Y12 and the Further Maths in Y13 you'll have enough to tackle STEP I and II soon. Students who take C1 - C4 and FM in parallel should learn the integration techniques (parts and substitution) and trig identities, compound angle formulae early. That way you will have enough to tackle a good range of I and II questions.

Reply 1256

TRLMaths

Original post by zuzia.kru

thanks again

Hey! Where's your offer for? I'm assuming it's a 11 in II and III. How you finding it?

Reply 1257

Xero Xenith

Original post by ben-smith

Starting to get a bit worried about the speed at which I do STEP Qs :frown:

On the upside, went to Roger Penrose's lecture :biggrin:

Even when you're under pressure (i.e. doing mocks in 3 hours)?

I find I'm much faster when I have the pressure on. It also helps that the time pressure makes me move on to different questions and jump between them a bit... which for some reason helps :confused:

For comparison, I managed 5 good solutions in 3 hours on my last STEP II, while it usually takes me 1-2 hours to do a single decent solution when I'm not under pressure and without a calculator/Wolfram.

This makes me think that it might be a good strategy to effectively do each paper twice - once in exam conditions for real (choosing the nicest questions), then once in exam conditions working on the questions you didn't choose before.

(So you get either: a lower bound - what happens if in the real exam you choose a load of stinkers? - or, you get more experience with different question styles.)

Just an idea, and I don't know if it applies to you, Mr DoneAllThePapers. :tongue:

Just thinking really...

Reply 1258

zuzia.kru

Original post by TRLMaths

Hey! Where's your offer for? I'm assuming it's a 11 in II and III. How you finding it?

It's from Sidney Sussex, and yours? Yeah it's exactly 11 in II and III and I really enjoy doing the past papers (step type questions are unusual in a good way) but I've my final exams at school coming and I obviously can't ignore them so it's hard to find time for all the studying...

what makes things harder, loads of stuff from alevels or IB syllabuses doesn't exist in mine :frown:

but I really like learning new things on my own...if only I had more time..

so anyway it reminds me...if any of you have some interesting materials in pdfs (other than past papers and siklos's books) please let me know.. :smile:

How are you doing?

Reply 1259

Xero Xenith

Original post by zuzia.kru

what makes things harder, loads of stuff from alevels or IB syllabuses doesn't exist in mine :frown:

How are you doing?

J.M.Stone has made some very helpful revision notes that cover pretty much everything you need for STEP in a really nice format. (It actually has more than you need, so make sure you don't study things that aren't important - don't study matrices from FP1 or vectors/planes from FP3 for instance.)

You'll probably want C1-4 and FP1-3, and maybe S1. His website:

http://mathshelper.co.uk/alp.htm

or, all together:

http://www.mediafire.com/?azuffb3z5j1789z

I use them for learning new material quickly. :smile: