The Student Room Group
Uni students - Complete our survey >>
Uni students - Complete our survey >>
Uni students - Complete our survey >>

The 2012 STEP Results Discussion Thread

Scroll to see replies

What do you guys think is the hardest STEP question ever? I assume it will be different for most
Original post by TheMagicMan
What do you guys think is the hardest STEP question ever? I assume it will be different for most


Dfranklin mentioned ages ago that he thought Q 7 on STEP I 1987 was extremely hard.
I think some of the old school mechanics questions have to be up there.
Hi, how do you work out the number of ways of rearranging the digits of a 5 digit number, for example 47552?
Original post by jukebox123
Hi, how do you work out the number of ways of rearranging the digits of a 5 digit number, for example 47552?


It's called a multinomial coefficient. If you take an n digit number where there are aia_i of each digit (i.e. a0a_0 0's, a1a_1 1's etc.)

Then the number of ways of rearranging it =n!∏i≤9(ai!)\displaystyle =\frac{n!}{\prod_{i \leq 9} (a_i!)}

(this of course allows for the possibility of numbers beginning with 0...if you don't want that then an adjustment has to be made)
Managed four correct answers under examination conditions on STEP I 2004 earlier today!
Original post by oh_1993
I applied to Queens' but was unsuccessful after interview although I will likely be reapplying next year because I have decided to take a year out. I am taking all 3 STEP papers for Warwick offer and possible reapplication. Waaaay more fun than Maths and Further Maths was. :smile:


ah yh that sounds like a good decision....especially if your doing all 3 papers :tongue:
Can anyone please help me with part ii of STEP I 2005 questions 7?
Many Thanks :smile:
Original post by jukebox123
Can anyone please help me with part ii of STEP I 2005 questions 7?
Many Thanks :smile:

Notice that ∏aibi=∏ai∏bi\prod a_ib_i = \prod a_i \prod b_i. Can you do any factorisation on the general term of your product? Be careful with your limits, too.
Original post by jukebox123
Can anyone please help me with part ii of STEP I 2005 questions 5?
Many Thanks :smile:


Spoiler



I would've liked this question if they hadn't specified you have to separate out the cases. Making you figure that out yourself would've been a much better question in my opinion.

Sorry! I misread that as Q5! :colondollar: I thought that was too easy a question to require a hint! (If anyone hasn't tried it, its a nice short question).
(edited 12 years ago)
Original post by shamika

Spoiler



I would've liked this question if they hadn't specified you have to separate out the cases. Making you figure that out yourself would've been a much better question in my opinion.


Integration? Are you sure it's the right question? It's on simplifying products.


Original post by jukebox123
Can anyone please help me with part ii of STEP I 2005 questions 7?
Many Thanks :smile:


Factorise r^2-1 and try something like n=4 or 5 (to make it clearer) writing in terms of r. What do you get?
Original post by Dog4444
Integration? Are you sure it's the right question? It's on simplifying products.




Factorise r^2-1 and try something like n=4 or 5 (to make it clearer) writing in terms of r. What do you get?


Thanks for correcting. I feel really thick now though! :colondollar:
Reply 1311
Avatar for gff
gff
5
Original post by ben-smith
Pretty good. He spoke about this stuff which is fairly mind blowing.


Sounds fun. He seem to always have interesting topics to talk about. :tongue:
bloody hell!
Original post by ben-smith


St.Pauls or troll. :colone:
Original post by ben-smith


I'll reiterate what others have said on that forum - university maths is very different to what you learn at A-Level. However, if you are performing at that level university maths is definitely not beyond you.
I've now fully analysed the marks and grade boundaries (mean, standard deviation, etc.) for all of the STEP papers using the information in the OP from 2000->2011... There's quite a lot of info so I'm not sure what's the best way to post it (or if anyone actually cares).


There are a few interesting results, although most of them are to be expected... The largest grade boundary standard deviation is 7.35 (grade 2 on STEP I - I'm sure you can see why). Most boundaries seem to have a standard deviation of around 5 (as expected considering the boundaries' relative positions). The grade 3 boundaries on all papers have a low standard deviation (expected as it is a lower mark). The range (and standard deviation) on boundaries for STEP III is significantly lower than STEP I and II.

The paper with grade boundaries closest to the mean (i.e. if we assume difficulty varies with boundary position the best example of an "average paper") for STEP I was 2000, for STEP II was 2007, and for STEP III was 2008/2006 (both were very close). So (again assuming difficulty and score are proportional) if you want to check your progress at some point, then these papers are the best examples of an averagely difficult papers.

I know a lot of you have offer of 1,1 on STEP II and III, the average score for a 1 on STEP II is 66.2 (standard deviation 4.80) and on STEP III is 60.6 (standard deviation 3.79).

There weren't really any major surprises or interesting cases for the boundary positions (things went mostly as expected). I think the main conclusion I came to was that actually grade boundary position does not change very much from paper to paper, so with maybe one or two exceptions (STEP I 2010 for example) all the papers seem to be roughly equivalent. I also think an 12-sample is also too small to draw any certain conclusions, to be sure (for CI, arn, etc) the sample needs to be closer to 30, so these figures aren't really that helpful, but it's better than nothing.
(edited 12 years ago)
Original post by shamika
I'll reiterate what others have said on that forum - university maths is very different to what you learn at A-Level. However, if you are performing at that level university maths is definitely not beyond you.


I was just saying that the results were impressive...
Original post by ben-smith
I was just saying that the results were impressive...


I don't think anyone has ever done it in my school....
Does anyone know if grade S (the top grade) in STEP papers (all three) are achieved by UK or international students?

In fact have any readers here achieved S in both papers (I and II or II and III)?
Doesn't it just make you bubble when you check your solution with the official solution and you've done it the slick way:biggrin:

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you