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STEP Prep Thread 2016 (Mark. II)

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Original post by Insight314
Yeah, it was 4 moles. :biggrin:

I guess we were both pretty thirsty in the exam.. getting 100-200 moles of water and all.


I am known for my 2L water bottle....


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Original post by drandy76
I am known for my 2L water bottle....


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im known for necking a litre of lucozade then pissing about twenty times
Original post by tridianprime
I just want to do some long tests and couldn't think of what else to fill them with - maybe older STEP questions.


For sure do some IMO stuff but learning tripos is the hint i got from everyoneat cambridge. Most of them say to get a first familiarity is the key so just bang out the courses before hand.


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Original post by Number Nine
im known for necking a litre of lucozade then pissing about twenty times


You can save the environment by reusing that lucozade bottle as a portable urinal


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Original post by drandy76
You can save the environment by reusing that lucozade bottle as a portable urinal


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I am not surprised if he mixes up the lucozade bottles with the urine.
Original post by drandy76
You can save the environment by reusing that lucozade bottle as a portable urinal


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not with my ex army invigilator breathing down my neck no siree
Original post by physicsmaths
For sure do some IMO stuff but learning tripos is the hint i got from everyoneat cambridge. Most of them say to get a first familiarity is the key so just bang out the courses before hand.


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Do you think it is possible to finish IA during summer? You know my work ethic.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by Number Nine
not with my ex army invigilator breathing down my neck no siree


Look him in the eye while you do it, earn his respek


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Original post by Insight314
Do you think it is possible to finish 1A during summer? You know my work ethic.


Original post by Insight314
Do you think it is possible to finish 1A during summer? You know my work ethic.


do u mean IA tripos or sommat else
Original post by Number Nine
do u mean IA tripos or sommat else


no, I mean STEP I of course
Original post by Insight314
no, I mean STEP I of course


hi im insight and a capital i is equivalent to the number one
Original post by Number Nine
hi im insight and a capital i is equivalent to the number one


oh ****, I see what you mean.
Original post by Insight314
oh ****, I see what you mean.


and unless your work ethic is any waking hour and you manage to retain it all its probably not possible unless youre ike 90%ramanujan
What do people think will be the boundary for a 1 in STEP II and III?
Reply 2374
Original post by mathsman22
What do people think will be the boundary for a 1 in STEP II and III?


70, 65.
Original post by Mathemagicien
What is your work ethic?


What do you mean?

I meant to say that physicsmaths knows that I have a good work ethic, since I did self-study 3 A-levels (AS and A2) in one year together with my GCSEs + STEP prep.
Original post by Insight314
What do you mean?

I meant to say that physicsmaths knows that I have a good work ethic, since I did self-study 3 A-levels (AS and A2) in one year together with my GCSEs + STEP prep.


I wouldn't reccommend trying to learn all of IA. Just cover some material tho. I duno if it can be done properly but I think all the material can get covered yeh.


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Don't think I've gone through what I did yet... in order:

2) Did 2i. Not sure why. This wasn't a great choice to start with, so I cut my losses and moved on; quite close to panicking but managed to hold it together.

11) Not a great deal to this question if I'm honest. A nice full to get me in the swing of things.

12) I don't normally do the stats on III, but something drew me to the Chebyshev inequality. Both parts, if you saw the trick, were weirdly quick... worried that I'd missed something, but I think this was just a (somewhat overlooked from what I've seen) gift.

1) Quite an agreeable question. Reduction formula took me a while, but it came out from shunting terms and hoping for the best. Induction was nice and ok as well.

4) Quite liked this one as well. Oversimplified the last bit on my first run through, but I caught my error once I checked it. Didn't get it down to the very simplest form though.

9) Should have been a routine SHM question, but it wasn't... first couple of results were swift to arise, but that final period took me an age to get anywhere near mainly due to algebra errors. Eventually got to the final answer except missing a factor of root3, but decided to move on. Never did find that root3 but not for want of trying...

8) Probably should have tried this one earlier. Algebra got annoying but not unmanageable in parts, and I was pleased to see this one through without too much trouble.

I was thinking of trying for a seventh, but ultimately I didn't feel it was a good use of my time. My checking corrected a lot of generally silly things I said so I probably picked up more extra marks here than randomly flailing at q7 or whatever. Rather happy with this performance.

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Original post by physicsmaths
I wouldn't reccommend trying to learn all of IA. Just cover some material tho. I duno if it can be done properly but I think all the material can get covered yeh.


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Yeah, I think so too. I was not expecting for any of you to tell me that 3 months is enough to cover something which is way more difficult than I have studied before and in like 1/3 of the time (not sure how many weeks one year is in Cambridge terms). I was more like trying to get info onto how long one course takes, and how many I would be able to finish. I hope you don't take me as an unrealistic and highly ambitious kind; I try to be ambitious to a realistic degree.

I agree with you though. I feel like it would be best to cover only a few courses but make sure I do all the problem sheets + read through my textbook + lecture notes. In this way, even though I would have done only a few of the first courses for IA, I would be good enough to smash them when October comes.
Original post by Mathemagicien
That's quite a work ethic

How many hours a day of studying do you do?


I don't count it. I used to take a stopwatch and normally go up to maximum 14 hours (usually less than that, maybe 10 hours), but that is during holidays. It is usually easier to go more time studying when I have school since my schedule is split to make it easier for me - 8am to 3.30pm school study, go home, eat, then study until midnight (I live far from school so it takes me 1.5 hours transport from home to school though)

Edit: I am probably not gonna do 10-14 hours during summer since I want to relax a bit so I don't burn out; I need rest before Cambridge. However, I am planning on something like 5 hours, depending on how eager I get of working through IA I may increase it.
(edited 7 years ago)

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