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Getting to Cambridge: STEP by STEP!

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Q7: First part was bog standard. Second was as well. Third took me a good while and three attempts before I gave up trying to use the intended method and spammed it with C4 vectors that worked surprisingly well till I realised I subtracted wrong and had to restart again. Then tried to be a smartarse and pulled out constants for my length vector.

Spoiler

15 minutes, lost a mark.

Same

The "mark scheme method" was actually C4 vectors :tongue:

Original post by Zacken

Vectors/matrices/locus questions definitely seem to be my largest time sinks.

Exact same issue, what will you do to work on it?

Reply 1081

Zacken

Original post by Mathemagicien

Hey Zacken, I have a question for you

You know how STEP questions are often: state this; show that, in general, this holds; hence deduce this special case

Do you have any tips for when you've almost polished off a question, but you just have to deduce a special case from your general statements?

I often spend too long on these parts

This is probably not exactly what you're looking for, but what I tend to do is look at how much work I've done for the last few parts and estimate how many marks it's worth so I can try and tell whether the "deduce" thing is a two liner that I need only spend two minutes on or a fairly involved thing that'll require a good bit of time. If it's the former, I'll spend two minutes trying to think of why this special case is special and the importance of it and try and intuit it from the previous part (is there a reason they asked to show the gradient is always positive, is there a reason for the sketch, is this integral undefined there, etc...?) and if I can't get it after two or three minutes, I'll just drop it and move on to another question.

If it's the latter case, then I try and stop thinking of it as a "mini-part" and try and think of it as being a quarter or a half of the entire question and give it lots of thought/working out.

Reply 1082

Zacken

Original post by aymanzayedmannan

Same

The "mark scheme method" was actually C4 vectors :tongue:

The markscheme did some weird ass thing with sines and cosines that I've never learnt before. :dontknow:

Exact same issue, what will you do to work on it?

I meant time sinks in the sense that I usually always make an algebraic slip and have to restart the question. So I figure I'm going to force myself to go slow and do the questions with proper thought and care so as to save on time. I figure my conceptualisation is fairly solid. :yep:

Reply 1083

Doones

Original post by tinkerbella~

Analysis:
74/75, 45 minutes. Very disappointed with this, maybe a little :no:

on the end to highlight your disappointment? And put it in orange in the OP

Original post by Zacken

June 2010, FP3:
Total time: 52 minutes.
Total raw mark: 74/75
...getting it wrong over and over again ... a bit disconcerting... got a little messy... before I gave up trying ...I subtracted wrong... Just plain ugly....ugly algebra...stop making so many silly mistakes...

Boom!

(Congrats to TB on the premonition and Zack on the outcome :smile:

Reply 1084

Zacken

Original post by jneill

Boom!

(Congrats to TB on the premonition and Zack on the outcome :smile:

It's not like I told her about it last night or anything. :rolleyes:

Reply 1085

Duke Glacia

Original post by Zacken

m8 what do u mean proof by contradiction ?

Reply 1086

Doones

Original post by Zacken

It's not like I told her about it last night or anything. :rolleyes:

Cool story bro.

:wink:

Reply 1087

Zacken

Original post by Duke Glacia

m8 what do u mean proof by contradiction ?

? Where did I say proof by contradiction?

Reply 1088

Zacken

Original post by jneill

Cool story bro.

:wink:

Thanks, though. :lol:

Any more recent additions to your slang vocabulary you want to try out? :wink:

Spoiler

Reply 1089

Duke Glacia

LOL no I m doing a STEP 1 2008 question. Proof by contradiction that if pq is irrational atleast one of q or p is irrational

Reply 1090

Student403

Original post by Zacken

Thanks, though. :lol:

Any more recent additions to your slang vocabulary you want to try out? :wink:

Spoiler

Omg TeeEm when he said that I burst out laughing irl.. What a guy :biggrin:

Reply 1091

Kvothe the Arcane

Original post by tinkerbella~

Analysis:
74/75, 45 minutes. Very disappointed with this, maybe a little :no:

on the end to highlight your disappointment? And put it in orange in the OP

You're too funny.

Original post by Zacken

June 2010, FP3:

Total time: 52 minutes.
Total raw mark: 74/75

Nice nice. In the actual exam, are you going to check through your answers in the remaining 45?

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 1092

Ayman!

Original post by Zacken

The markscheme did some weird ass thing with sines and cosines that I've never learnt before. :dontknow:

The first part is finding the angle between two vectors using the dot product. The second part is just a right angled triangle and some trig. You've learnt it in year 7. :tongue:

I don't doubt that one bit! I go a little slowly for vectors and matrices questions because those little slips can be so costly, especially in FP3. You should also spend some time drawing a diagram for the last part of vector problems, I feel like it makes the maths involved jump out.

Reply 1093

Zacken

Original post by Duke Glacia

LOL no I m doing a STEP 1 2008 question. Proof by contradiction that if pq is irrational atleast one of q or p is irrational

Well, yeah. Assume that if

pq

is irrational then both

p

and

q

are rational, see if that makes sense and prove that it doesn't. Hence both

p

and

q

cannot be rational, so one needs to be rational.

Reply 1094

Zacken

Original post by Student403

Omg TeeEm when he said that I burst out laughing irl.. What a guy :biggrin:

I knooow! I died. :toofunny:

Original post by Kvothe the arcane

You're too funny.

Don't encourage her.

Nice nice. In the actual exam, are you going to check through your answers in the remaining 45?

I kept telling myself I'd do that for my Jan exams, 'cause I'd do all my practice papers in half the time, and even less for C12 and C34, but then in the actual exam once I'd finished, I just lay back in my chair and ate cereal bars because I couldn't be bothered checking over. So I'm not sure.

Reply 1095

Kvothe the Arcane

Original post by Zacken

Don't encourage her.

She's not replying to me :sad:

Fair nuffs. I can't remember what I did for my early finishes. I hate checking over work so I probably just thought deeply.

Original post by Student403

Omg TeeEm when he said that I burst out laughing irl.. What a guy :biggrin:

I hope you weren't in your library.

Reply 1096

Student403

Original post by Kvothe the arcane

I hope you weren't in your library.

Libraries aren't so commonplace here :frown:

I wish they were - I'd be much more productive. I remember when I went to Cambridge for my interview I couldn't stay out of the Clare library and I managed to complete a full M3 chapter between interviews :biggrin:

Reply 1097

Kvothe the Arcane

Original post by Student403

Libraries aren't so commonplace here :frown:

And you say you aren't one of the crazies.

Reply 1098

Zacken

Original post by aymanzayedmannan

The first part is finding the angle between two vectors using the dot product. The second part is just a right angled triangle and some trig. You've learnt it in year 7. :tongue:

I should probably learnt that method at some point. Did you use it as well or did you do my thing with "Let

\mathbf{X}

be a vector lying on blah such that it is perpendicular to blah blah, dot product, find

\lambda

and do magnitudes"?

I knooow, one slip with your cubic shiz in eigenvalues and you're dead. By the way, do you just write down the determinant of

\mathbf{M} - \lambda\mathbf{I}

directly or do you write out the matrix

\mathbf{M} - \lambda\mathbf{I}

first?

I definitely agree re: the vector question. I had to re-do that question once or twice, the first time was without a diagram and I got muddled up with R, N, P, etc... but upon drawing the diagram, it all clicked and I ran through it smoothly.