Dw it isn't that bad! You need, what, 190 UMS across 3 modules to meet your offer? That isn't too bad... I finished my particle physics notes and I'm done with U4, I'll send them to you once I've scanned them on my phone
Dw it isn't that bad! You need, what, 190 UMS across 3 modules to meet your offer? That isn't too bad... I finished my particle physics notes and I'm done with U4, I'll send them to you once I've scanned them on my phone
Aye, I think I'm going to go for the A* anyway though. Same thing applies to you as well, right? Your offer is just an A with a possible B, yeah?
Q1. 17/20 - good for the most part, but I reckon you ought to give a bit more justification for the number of roots. Maybe sketch the relevant graphs?
2. 20, fine.
3. 15 maybe. You did most of the work, it's just literally expanding the first few terms of the series and going to work on the coefficients.
4. 16 or so. Excellent explanation and justification for the most part (more than I did at any rate), it just went unfortunately astray towards the end (which I think you know about)
6. Probably 17 or so? The official solutions go more or less from what you say to 'which is the standard equation of a parabola', so you may well not lose many marks at all. I went slightly further to justify why this is the equation of a parabola (using r^2 =x^2 +y^2, x=rcostheta etc) mainly because I didn't know the 'standard equation'.
Q7. More or less fine. 19, might have liked a bit more justification in parts but there isn't much to dispute.
8. 18 - having defined your polynomial, I would have preferred a more explicit use of rule 2 to justify the leap from a single term to the full polynomial.
He got a Grade 2 on the STEP I exam last year. I am not trying to belittle him but I am starting to become annoyed with people thinking that intelligence is fixed or that you can't get better in STEP by just practicing questions. I was actually privately messaged by an aspiring Mathmo who told me that he is 'scared' of STEP because some people on the STEP prep thread have been saying that STEP requires natural mathematical ability to get a high grade on it. This is a bit out of context, we discussed other stuff, but he really wasn't sure if he could get a Grade 1 when he currently gets 'scared' by STEP questions; he is applying next year. So I had to direct him to the main post of STEP prep thread, where shamika readily discusses this issue that many people have, mainly that some kind of 'genius' is required to be good at STEP.
He got a Grade 2 on the STEP I exam last year. I am not trying to belittle him but I am starting to become annoyed with people thinking that intelligence is fixed or that you can't get better in STEP by just practicing questions. I was actually privately messaged by an aspiring Mathmo who told me that he is 'scared' of STEP because some people on the STEP prep thread have been saying that STEP requires natural mathematical ability to get a high grade on it. This is a bit out of context, we discussed other stuff, but he really wasn't sure if he could get a Grade 1 when he currently gets 'scared' by STEP questions; he is applying next year. So I had to direct him to the main post of STEP prep thread, where shamika readily discusses this issue that many people have, mainly that some kind of 'genius' is required to be good at STEP.
It's not like there is 0 degree of mathematical ability involved...at least, when considering reasonable timescales/workloads. Perhaps most people could get an S eventually, and with enough work, but having ability dramatically reduces the amount of practice required. But I do agree that practice is a big part of STEP and to pretend otherwise is silly. Also most people who are in a position of needing STEP will doubtless have the ability anyway.