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# STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions Tweet

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1. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
Ok, so heres my working:

I get the integral down to;

which becomes:

which is equal to ?
2. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
Yeah, that's right. The curve is called an astroid; it has some interesting properties.
3. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
Cheers , I'll have to check my working more carefully in the future .
4. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
(Original post by Square)
Sorry to dig up the old thread.

Looking at the solution for II/2 part i). Why can you not factorise 4n^2-60n+200<0 to 4(n-5)(n-10)<0 and then propose that there are no real roots for (*) when 5 < n < 10.

I hope I've not done something stupid here :/

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/show...9&postcount=16
You're right, don't know what's happened with my mental arithmetic on that question. Will try and fix that now.
5. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
(Original post by nota bene)
You're right, don't know what's happened with my mental arithmetic on that question. Will try and fix that now.
Okay! I just saw all those and panicked!

I'm trying to repost with a better typed solution to ii) which gave me the right answer but I still think turned out to be rather weak.
Last edited by Square; 02-05-2008 at 23:47.
6. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
Okay II/2

Spoiler:
Show

ii) The discriminant factorises down to:

complete the square:

(**)

Now we are told p<r this implies p-r<0

Now, for (*) to have no real roots the discriminant (**)<0

If p-r<0 (**)<0 iff

Here is where I'm not sure, I said that the bracket would ALWAYS be greater than zero if:

(discarding the squared term as it is always positive)

which gives the desired result.

However surely the bracket could still be positive if: AND

If that makes sense at all!

re-reading this it doesn't make much sense really!
Last edited by Square; 03-05-2008 at 00:43.
7. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
(Original post by Square)
However surely the bracket could still be positive if: AND
Firstly it appears to me that your expression after "AND" should be (unless I'm being stupid)

And yes, I think this "and" case would need examination, as otherwise you haven't covered all possibilities. It's well possible that it's possible to prove this "and" cannot happen, or that it can be disregarded for some reason; however I don't see why directly and you would probably need to motivate why/how in a solution.

I understand what you are doing, but can't see how to finish it solidly. Let's see what comments David has.
8. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
(Original post by nota bene)
Firstly it appears to me that your expression after "AND" should be (unless I'm being stupid)

And yes, I think this "and" case would need examination, as otherwise you haven't covered all possibilities. It's well possible that it's possible to prove this "and" cannot happen, or that it can be disregarded for some reason; however I don't see why directly and you would probably need to motivate why/how in a solution.

I understand what you are doing, but can't see how to finish it solidly. Let's see what comments David has.
Sorry think that's a typo on my part.
9. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
(Original post by nota bene)
Firstly it appears to me that your expression after "AND" should be (unless I'm being stupid)

And yes, I think this "and" case would need examination, as otherwise you haven't covered all possibilities. It's well possible that it's possible to prove this "and" cannot happen, or that it can be disregarded for some reason; however I don't see why directly and you would probably need to motivate why/how in a solution.

I understand what you are doing, but can't see how to finish it solidly. Let's see what comments David has.
The only thing I can think of is somehow using p<r to get one side positive the other side negative or something and find a contradiction. Alas that would be nice but I can't seem to see anything like that .
10. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
(Original post by nota bene)
Firstly it appears to me that your expression after "AND" should be (unless I'm being stupid)

And yes, I think this "and" case would need examination, as otherwise you haven't covered all possibilities.
The question only asks you to show that "p < r and 4q(p-r)>s^2" implies the quadratic has no real roots. It's not an "if and only if" question. So what square has done is fine.

If we ignore the wording of the question, then if n can take any real value, then I'm pretty sure (without detailed calculation) we end up with an "if and only if" result; simply choose . But as n can only take positive integers, the true result would be more complicated. Fortunately, that's not what they're asking for...
11. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
(Original post by DFranklin)
The question only asks you to show that "p < r and 4q(p-r)>s^2" implies the quadratic has no real roots. It's not an "if and only if" question.
Ah, yes sorry! Of course the result is fine then
12. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
(Original post by nota bene)
Ah, yes sorry! Of course the result is fine then
Yay, that's great.

I'm glad to hear my solution was correct after all. The question didn't take me an awful long time but it was slightly disheartening to come onto the solution thread and see something totally different .
13. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
1999 III/1 part ii)

I'm slightly confused by Zhen Lin's solution (well by confused I meant it seems a LOT different to how I did it.)

Spoiler:
Show

ii)

from part i) r=a^3 => a=p/q. Since a is a root of the cubic above therefore p/q must also be a root.

The other two roots are ak and a/k, the product of these is a^2, a^2=(p/q)^2 as required.

The three roots are: ak, a, a/k. These are obviously in geometric progression with common ratio 1/k.

This almost seems FAR too simple.

David seems to have not been around for the last few days, hope everything is okay!
Last edited by Square; 21-05-2008 at 22:49.
14. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
Well, the thing is, you are assuming that are roots of the equation - this is not a given when you start part ii, I think.
15. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
Step I Question 9

When the hare overtakes, both have travelled 0.5km, but the tortoise has travelled for 0.5hours longer. Using for both:

Therefore, ...(A)

When the hare passes the tortoise on the way back, the hare has travelled whilst the tortoise has travelled . However, the tortoise has been racing for 1 hour longer.

Using again:

Therefore, ...(B)

From, (A) and (B)

This gives: . Multiplying top and bottom by 4 gives as required.

From A we know that . Substituting expression for V gives:

.
So, .

The hare finishes 1.5hrs. This means she has travelled 2X in 1.5hrs.
So,
Substituting expression for V,
.
Solving the quadratic but since , .
So, finally .
Last edited by lilman91; 24-07-2008 at 22:03.
16. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
Step I Question 14

(i)Let Y = Score. The score is a discrete random variable whose probabilities need to be calculated.

So now,
Thus, as required.

(ii) The ways of winning are a) 3 b) 2,1 (in any order) c)1,1,1

a)
b)
c)

So (that takes a bit of long winded arithmetic)

We want to find

But

So, as required.
17. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
STEP III Question 12

(i) Find for each :
This means that we're looking at combinations of of . Therefore,
, which is equivalent to:

.

We can now see that this produces a binomial series, and can thus simplify down to:

.

(ii) Show that :

For a discrete probability density function, we know that the cumulative sum of probabilities will equal 1. Thus, . This implies that:

.

We notice that , and so .

(iii) Show that is an increasing function of for and deduce that the equation in has at most one solution and hence determine :

Let . , so for , and so there are no turning points and thus there will only be one root of in this range.

Finding the value of simply takes some observation: , and so .

(iv) Calculate the expectation :

.

My first attempt, I hope someone verifies this .
18. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
STEP I, Question 1

Spoiler:
Show
Using the principle of inclusion-exclusion, there will be

positive integers less than one million.

By symmetry, their average value will be

Using PIE again

To find the sum of these values, we have

19. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
STEP I, Question 6

Spoiler:
Show
Let

If b=0, y is constant, so
If b>0, y is strictly increasing so
If b<0, y is strictly decreasing so

Let
If c=0, treat it as above

This is the case where from earlier.

If then it is strictly increasing and

If then it is strictly decreasing

The maximum will occur on an end point. Therefore it depends solely on the sign of b. Therefore if b>0

otherwise
20. Re: STEP I, II, III 1999 solutions
STEP I, Question 8

Spoiler:
Show

However

Therefore

or
(as required)

Crudely approximating

Therefore

So
Last edited by SimonM; 23-03-2009 at 22:55.
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