The 2012 STEP Results Discussion Thread

There's no reading time in STEP, right? As in a couple of mins to only read thru the questions, no writing

At least you won't miss the exam. I had a dream the other night that I woke up late and I missed STEP II exam (it was morning one haha), when I actually woke up, it took me a couple of minutes to realise that it isn't the STEP day yet

Also Ive seen some people have said how long they spend reading questions. What is the best thing to do. Does 20 mins not feel too long ?

I've realised that I may well become one of those people who is mentioned on the examiner's reports as getting no marks. Today I differentiated sin(f(x)) to f'(x)sin(f(x)) and wondered why my answer was obviously wrong (given the following parts of the question). *sigh*

Also, I'm also going to say that 20 minutes is too long. What exactly would you be doing in those 20 minutes?

x coordinate of the stationary point is given by x = ln(0.5 + n) and it alternates between minimum and maximum for different values of n. So kth maximum would be lets say ln (0.5 + k) so k+1th maximum would be ln ( 2.5 +k) (and the minimum would be ln (1.5 + x)). Please correct me if I'm wrong

You're wrong. If you are saying the kth maximum is ln(0.5+k), then that formula says the k+1th maximum is ln(0.5+(k+1)), NOT ln(2.5+k).

i.e. Using formula "kth maximum is ln(0.5+k)", we have:
1st maximum is ln(0.5 + 1) = ln(1.5)
2nd maximum is ln(0.5 + 2) = ln(2.5)

[As].

For 2011 STEP II Question 6

Quite excited now Hopefully this exam will go slightly better than my BMO paper this year did.

Best of luck to people who have an offer hinging on this paper. I'm in a rather fortunate position in that my performance won't really have any ramifications... it must be a lot tougher with that added pressure But often, I find once you get into the exam, concentration eclipses all nerves and you just get stuck into the questions regardless

If the formula is x = ln (0.5 +n) for stationary points, then my kth stationary point when n = k (which let's choose to be a maximum) is at ln (0.5 + k) (without worrying for values of k for now) then the stationary points following it would be when n = k + 1 which would be a minimum (since they alternate between the two), so when n = k + 2 I would have my next maximum?

Their formula for stat points is the same x = ln( 0.5 +n), but they chose their required points to be ln (2k -1.5) (max) ,ln (2k -0.5 ) (min) , ln (2k +0.5) (max). I do not get why the negatives are even involved..

Sorry I couldn't write this earlier - I've been feeling a little ill the last couple of days. A few last bits of advice before STEP I on Monday:

1) Do not panic. You can ignore the other advice I give below, but seriously try to resist the urge to worry about the exam. A little nervous adrenaline is fine (and may help). Thinking that your life is about to end because of a bad paper is silly and counterproductive.

Not doing any STEP over the weekend is a completely valid 'revision technique' if it means you'll be alert and relaxed for the exam. Eat and sleep properly, and take some water with you into the exam.

2) Resist the urge to put pen to paper the second the exam starts. You should read every question in the Pure section, and any of the applied that you can realistically do (clearly if you've never studied any statistics trying to do some in the exam is unrealistic at best).

How long you spend is up to you. I would spend between 5 and 10 minutes, and in that time:

- I would have a good idea what each question is trying to test (e.g. 'this is an integration question')
- I would skip any questions on topics I hate (for me, any question with vectors or geometry I'd stop reading it and move on)
- I would work out which questions I think are easy (i.e. I can work out immediately how to do the first few parts, or sometimes the entire thing from a glance), and hence work out the order I want to attempt them

STEP is supposed to be unpredictable, and its supposed to be hard. Don't make it harder by trying the wrong questions.

3) STEP requires you to use standard techniques in novel ways, and thinking about how to approach a question can reap dividends. As an example, consider STEP I Q2, 2011:



4) The above question is also slightly unusual in that the first part is the hardest in the question. You can pick up marks for doing later parts of the question without doing the first.



5) Any valid way to do a question (which is not expressly forbidden by the question) should gain full marks. There are often multiple ways to do a question. The recent solutions and examiner's reports for STEP I are excellently written and often show multiple ways of doing a question - one thing you might want to do this weekend is to read those rather than trying a full paper.

6) STEP I sometimes has an 'elementary' first question which requires no knowledge of the A-Level syllabus; the last one was STEP I, Q1, 2009. Knowing something about counting/prime numbers may give you a full question very quickly.

7) Don't ignore the applied if you can! Topics I would brush up on for STEP I would be:

Mechanics: collisions and projectiles
Statistics: definition of a pdf and expectation

(Obvious caveat - I have no idea what's in your paper)

You'd be surprised how many questions require very little knowledge. Applied questions which are slogs of algebraic manipulation are not uncommon.

8) Speaking of algebraic manipulation, STEP is full of it. You'll have to strike a balance between not making mistakes and not running out of time. STEP is definitely time pressured, especially if you're going for an S or 1 rather than 'just' a 2.

9) STEP sometimes requires you to prove or show that a statement holds. Learn (quickly if you haven't before the exam!):

- the difference between 'necessary' and 'sufficient' (or $A \Rightarrow B$ and $A \Leftarrow B$)
- what 'if and only if' or 'equivalent' means
- what an identity is and how it differs from an equality

Don't make the mistake of thinking peppering your script with fancy symbols is the way to go. Symbols should aid the reader in understanding your mathematics. Saying something using ordinary words is usually the way to go.

- remember that something 'obvious' may not be so in the heat of an exam. The "identity" $\frac{y}{x}\frac{x}{y}=1$ has the obvious caveat that it doesn't hold if either x or y are 0. Don't divide by 0 and be careful when squaring (there's the possibility of spurious solutions, since $\surd{x^2}=|x|$, not x

- In mechanics questions, always draw a diagram (the only exception to this we discussed earlier, for moments of inertia problems, do not come up in STEP I or II), and explain in words when resolving (and in what direction), or if you are using conservation of energy/momentum

10) If it's all going wrong, still don't panic:

- You might be very lucky and remember something from your extra reading around maths to use an advanced technique on a problem. If so, state very clearly what you are trying to do and force on. You might make the examiner smile and hey, that's never a bad thing

- Taking a couple of moments to breathe in the middle of the exam is not a bad thing. Last year I panicked in the middle of an exam - I shut my eyes, drank some water and moved on from that question. Ironically the thing that made me panic was an algebraic slip that changed an integral from something trivial to impossible.

- Fragments of questions may be worth more than you think.



- Checking your work (quickly) may show that you made a slip.

- If you're finding the exam hard, chances are the majority of people are too.

(The honest truth is that you're against the best of the best - someone is likely to do well no matter how harsh the paper is. However you can see for yourself how variable the grade boundaries are, just like any other exam. There is a chance the examiners misjudge the paper and make it too hard.)

Hey, if England can pull it back against Sweden, so can you

Best of luck all, no matter what happens it will be fine. Note the similarity between the above advice, and what is in the examiner reports/Siklos' booklets. Most of it seems obvious but believe me people will lose marks (maybe even grades) by not following it.

Anyone else starting to get worried about STEP? I have STEP 1 on Monday and depending on what questions come up it could go anywhere from really well to really badly ( i find my performance varies a lot paper to paper even taking into account different grade boundaries). Luckily i only need a 2 for warwick (assuming i get the A* in fm) and i opted to sit STEP 2 and the AEA to give me acouple more shots at getting papers that sit well with me .

This is everything that I would advice and you literally hit the nail on the head.

From my part, remember never to panic! If I could re-do STEP, I think that if I didn't panic, then I would have performed better. You guys have done all of your preparation, so have confidence in yourselves


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Thanks

I didn't get a chance to run it by you - sorry. I really did mean to write this on Tuesday...


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