STEP Prep Thread 2015

THEY'RE OUT!!http://www.admissionstestingservice.org/images/246349-step-2015-explanation-of-results.pdfNo S for me in I then... Oh, and the log in page now says 13th, not 14th

So happy with those boundaries for I...only the most evil marking will have prevented me from getting the necessary 2.

lel same. Feel even more nervous now though tbh, gonna be refreshing that results page like mad in 35 hours

I contemplated waiting for track to update but I doubt I'll manage

I've got to the point where I'm going to bed at 6am so staying up the extra hour or two isn't really a problem.

Ha I'm tending to fall asleep around 4:30 lately which isn't the best as it's hard to stay up but if I sleep for three hours I'll probably feel even worse. Probably won't manage sleep anyway I guess. If I've checked my STEP grade I'll be considering the implications in detail; if not, I'll be thinking about checking it.

Yeah, there's no way I'll be able to relax if I know that I've met the first half of my offer. These boundaries have made me kinda more worried about my FM A* for some reason. Edexcel boundaries should be released at midnight, right?

Yeah they usually are. Based on Arsey's Model Answers I shouldn't have anything to worry about on the Maths/Further Maths front but that won't stop me.

In the same boat lol. Pretty sure I got 75 in FP2 and M2, but I'm still worried that somehow I'll get 60 or whatever because reasons.

Same with FP2 and M2 but I'm worried about method marks and "show that" stuff in FP2. Plus in M2 I wrote OA = for an answer when it was supposed to be OC =, and had an incorrect diagram with two sets of working, one correct (and admittedly with big arrows pointing towards it). S2 is a hopeful 75 I can't recall much to be concerned about in so maybe that that will save me if my fears are true. Looking forward to the S3 and FP3 boundaries, those were "fun".

The 1 boundaries are nice all round, but looks like I'll miss out on the S on all 3 papers by only a few marks :/
Wasn't really going for any S's just thought it'd be cool to have one.

Oh God I spent so long looking at SI and AEA that I completely ignored FP3 since I was pretty confident that I knew it. Looked at a standard paper the night before and it was fine, but the real thing was much, much harder so I think I've got like 58/75. If I'd have taken the test a month prior there's no way I would have done so badly.

If there's big arrows pointing to the answer it'll be fine tbh. FP2 I kinda worried about how I answered the final part of the complex number question (Googled my technique and it said it was wrong due to **** called bridge cuts or whatever) but apparently that doesn't matter for A-Level so it's all good. S2 went pretty well so I hope I've got around 71 on that one.

What was bad about S3? I did M3 instead and that exam was pretty nice this year

58/75 could still contribute to the a* (although it sounds like S2 will do that just fine of course) as I imagine it will still be decent 80s, such was the difficulty of the paper. I just felt burnt out as it was my last exam and straight after S2, which wasn't the most taxing paper so had relaxed me...based on the mark scheme I think I actually did quite well though. How did AEA go? (didn't take it myself)

What technique did you use? I actually got the complex number wrong first time round, glad I looked over things.

S3 is a very frustrating exam for me because there was a monster abstract 6 marker that threw many people off; I got it right but instead decided to drop a load of stupid marks on the most basic stuff, along with a couple for using the wrong mean as I read a question wrong. The 6 marker wasn't the only "hard" bit though, there was a wacky last question (only 6 questions overall) and a couple of other headscratching abstract things that hadn't been asked before. Reckon I got about 66/75 though which should be good. Yeah I heard M3 wasn't too bad; think I would have sucked at that module though

Yeah FP3 could probably help, but M3 and S2 went much better and I shouldn't even need FP3 at all. AEA went ish: made quite a few awful mistakes (14x3 = 52 sort of mistakes in the middle of questions) but I might just have scraped a D.

I did w^8 = z^6 or whatever and then worked from w^(4/3) = z. I got all the right answers, but apparently if you attempt to answer complex number questions like that you'll get additional, incorrect solutions according to Wiki. That probably only applies at uni level, though.

I can't stand stats. Looked over the S3 textbook and it looked horribly difficult with lots to remember, a lot like the sampling chapter in S2. I think that the harder questions in stats are much harder than any of the harder questions in mech and pure, so I'd hate for them to start appearing like they did in your S3 exam.

I'm glad they don't do the equivalent of Maths and make you get 90% in FP2 and FP3 alone for an A*. It's probably actually easier to get the Further Maths A* considering the conditions. I hope you manage it, would be cool to make your offer in two ways.

Oh right that one, I completely forgot about that and was thinking about the loci. I remember a big discussion over the same thing, validity of certain answers, in the FP2 thread.

I have a strange relationship with stats. I love the kind of stats questions on STEP (and screwed myself by not doing any this year - I managed like half a stats question in the last five-ten minutes ), but when the questions are standard it is one of the most insipid areas. S3 isn't usually difficult, it's basically following "recipes", loads and loads of hypothesis testing. I find that stats knowledge doesn't stick with me like mechanics knowledge though, like all the random S3 stuff is gone from my brain now.