Getting to Cambridge: STEP by STEP!

What grades are good in STEP 1?
How impressive and hard is it to get "x" grade in STEP 1?
(x being the different possible grades you can achieve in STEP.)

I hope this made sense.

What grades are good in STEP 1?
How impressive and hard is it to get "x" grade in STEP 1?
(x being the different possible grades you can achieve in STEP.)

I hope this made sense.

Ouch.

And I'm stuck here doing IB with 4HLs >.<

That was me 2 years ago, so glad I left that *****y IB

Can't do that I'm afraid :/ Was it French that pushed you over the edge? The thing I hate the most is TOK, even though I enjoy philosophy! I'm hoping for a 42 so that I can apply to Cambridge.

One semester into the game and sometimes I wonder how much easier I'd have it with 3 or 4 A-levels and no IAs, EE, CAS...

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right..?

*shrugs* without the waste of time called IB, I was able to focus my time on doing far more difficult maths than what the IB has to offer; so a win-win for me.

And there wasn't really one contributing factor that pushed me over the edge, so to speak. It was just all the things building on my nerves.

You got into Cambridge then? For what?

*shrugs* without the waste of time called IB, I was able to focus my time on doing far more difficult maths than what the IB has to offer; so a win-win for me.

And there wasn't really one contributing factor that pushed me over the edge, so to speak. It was just all the things building on my nerves.

i thought u meant part Ib for a moment there and was gonna have to beat some sense into u

hi babes

(RECENT UPDATE HERE)

Background:

I started off secondary education on a pretty bad foot, things weren't going well, I fell in with the wrong group of friends at my new new school, one thing led to another and my report card was mainly U's and G's. This stayed this way till my GCSE years where I finally got to choose my own subjects, change class and make new friends. My grades were mediocre, I averaged C's in most of Year 10 subjects. I improved a little by the time the mocks came around and was fairly confident for exams.

It was right before exam term that I had an existential crisis and decided that grades didn't really mean anything to me and they had no bearing on my intelligence, so I put in zero effort into my IGCSE's, I slobbed around, didn't do any revision and spent half the exam doodling silly things onto spare paper and annoying invigilators.

I was fairly surprised at receiving 7 A*'s and an A (in economics, somebody isn't going to be happy about that) and was ecstatic at being the only one to have scored an A* in Additional Maths in my school's history. I moved on to sixth form, where I started the IB. At this point, I'd set my targets on studying maths. Things were looking up for me.

But, as always, thing's did not go well. I hated it all, I had to do a large number of irrelevant subjects, there was the CAS component, ToK, I had to do French as a First Language which was something I genuinely detested. I had many a falling out with the head of sixth and a variety of other teachers. I'd be called in to the office on regular intervals to be given a scolding, I refused to attend French class, it was bad.

After a year (this is September 2015), I got fed up of it all and quit. I decided that I would sit my A-Levels by myself and self-teach everything. I enrolled myself for January 2016 exams, applied to university and began working. I had four months to cover three A-Levels, roughly. I got invited to King's College, Cambridge for an interview, and then the unthinkable happened: I got an offer. This is where I am today.

Update as of 01/10/16: I ended up meeting my offer and being accepted to study maths at King's. I've moved in and have been settling in quite well so far.

Stats:

GCSE's: 7 A* 1 A (CIE IGCSE)
A-Levels: A*A*A


Things are a bit bare at the moment, I'll have to admit. It'll look a lot more homely once March rolls around and I get my January exam results back.

Why am I making this thread?

Well, I figure that this isn't only a really good way of cataloguing my experiences with past papers and a way to view my progress without writing things down physically because if I do, I'll lose whatever feeble attempt I tried. I'm hoping that is also acts as a reminder for working, although that's a bit of a fat chance, given my penchant for laziness and dumbness.