The Student Room Group

STEP Prep Thread 2018



NB. This is the 2018 STEP thread - if you are looking for the 2019 thread it's here:
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5537494

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Welcome to the 2018 STEP prep thread. This is the place to discuss, post problems, or ask any questions you may have regarding the exam!

Note about timings: based on previous threads, there are always some who will make a start in the 2017 summer holidays. Don't worry if you're not one of them! Most people will start seriously in January 2018, because that's when Cambridge will make their STEP offers. Please do not be put off if you read the thread and can't follow the thread. This thread is open to all, no matter what your level of preparedness - please ask your questions and hopefully someone will be able to help you. The only thing I ask is to read this first post in case it already answers your question. :smile:

If you are reading this ahead of Cambridge interviews, AEA, MAT and STEP I can be great practice for problem-solving, which is basically what the interview is about.

Acknowledgements: most of this information has been collected by people taking STEP in the past so hopefully you'll find the resources here useful. Particular thanks to @Lord of the Flies for making the original version of this and @shamika for essentially remaking the entire thing, I've only made a few changes from shamika's version.

0. General information

What is STEP?

STEP is a series of three exams taken late June each year, usually in Year 13, almost always because it forms part of a university offer. Which papers are sat depends on the university.

STEP I is the easiest, and STEP II and III are meant to be of similar difficulty.

Until recently, STEP was a Cambridge entrance exam in everything but name. These days, the majority of STEP candidates are not Cambridge offer holders.

2018 exam dates

STEP I: June 12
STEP II: June 18
STEP III: June 21

STEP grading and typical offers

STEP is graded as follows

S - Outstanding
1 - Very good
2 - Good
3 - Satisfactory
U - Ungraded

Remember that STEP is aimed at the top 2% of all maths A-level students, so it is meant to be hard. Typical offers are:
- Cambridge: 1, 1 in STEP II and III

- Warwick: A*A*A* without STEP, A*A*A with grade 1 in any STEP paper

- Imperial: require STEP if you missed the MAT deadline, or if you had a borderline MAT result

- King's College London: require STEP or AEA if you are doing AS Further Maths - rather than the full A-level

- UCL: A*A*A without STEP, A*AA with STEP grade 1 or distinction in AEA

- Bath: recommend, and will give alternate offers if STEP is offered

- Lancaster: AAA without Further Maths or STEP, drops to ABB if a grade 3 in STEP and Further Maths

- Bristol: reduced offer with STEP)

What is the point of STEP?

I'll defer to Dr. Siklos:

Dr. Siklos
From the point of view of admissions to a university mathematics course, STEP has three purposes.First, it acts as a hurdle: success in STEP is thought to be a good indicator of potential to do well on a difficult course.

Second, it acts as preparation for the course, because the style of mathematics found in STEP questions is similar to that of undergraduate mathematics.

Thirdly, it tests motivation. It is important to prepare for STEP (by working through old papers, for example), which can require considerable dedication. Those who are not willing to make the effort are unlikely to thrive on a difficult mathematics course.


From my perspective, these are all excellent reasons for aspiring mathematicians to give STEP a go. Note that there is something very important that STEP does not do. It is not meant as a bridging course between A-Levels (or equivalent) and university. In particular, STEP requires very little additional maths beyond what you are taught at A-Level. What is different is the style and ingenuity required to answer a STEP question compared to an A-Level question.

Note: You may have heard that Cambridge is introducing entrance exams at the interview stage for all students. The Mathematics Admissions Committee have confirmed that they will continue to use STEP for the basis of their admissions.

Exam conditions:
- Each paper is 3 hours long.- No calculators are allowed, but you do get a formula booklet- You are given answer booklets with lined paper.

Do all of your working in this booklet. Every year someone asks whether scrap paper is given. You have no need for it - the only way you can get marks is if the examiner sees your work. This includes all arithmetic / algebra that you would want to do on the side. You don't get marks for being neat, you get marks for doing correct maths.

- You are given no reading time, and therefore choosing the right questions is key.

If you're finding STEP hard...

You're in the right place - it is hard and this thread is designed to help you.Some stupendously intelligent people do not do well at STEP, either through lack of preparation or just a bad day. STEP is aimed at the top 2% of those who take A-Level mathematics. About 2100 STEP papers were sat in 2008, which equates to about 1000 people (because most people sat 2 papers). You have to be very good at maths to think about giving STEP a go.

That's not to say you can't prepare. If you're reading this, it means you want to do well. There are plenty of resources to help, including this thread. Most importantly, with practice and dedication, you have every chance of excelling.

You do not have to be a genius to do well in STEP (but it does help of course ).

1. Required knowledge

See here for the direct link to the full specification.

For STEP I and II, the syllabus is:

- Pure (Q1-8): C1-C4 plus proof by induction.
- Mechanics (Q9-11): M1-M2
- Statistics (Q12-13): S1-S2

If you are trying to prepare for STEP I, you really should cover C3 and C4 first to give yourself enough to do - covering this material and being comfortable with it by January 2018 is highly recommended. If you want extension material before you cover C3 and C4, you might want to look at the MAT.

For STEP III, the syllabus also covers Further Maths. Note in particular that for the applied:- Moments of inertia and motion around a fixed axis is on-syllabus (typically in M4/5)- Relative motion is on-syllabus (but not tested often - typically in M4)- Generating functions are on-syllabus (but I believe no longer in any A-level module)

Krollo, Zacken and Number Nine have kindly categorised all questions by topic - see the spreadsheet in this post. STEP II questions here.

New: Dr. Stephen Siklos has very kindly created an online STEP question lookup databse at http://stepdatabase.maths.org/index.html - the instructions on how to use it are provided on the site as well and it's an excellent tool!

2. The STEP Megapack

Download the latest version of the pack here. (Note it is nearly 100MB! See section 3 for details where you can download individual files.)

This includes:

- Past papers from 1987 - 2014
- Official solutions (2004 onwards) and examiners' reports (2007 onwards)
- Both of Dr. Siklos' booklets*
- Specification (i.e. the syllabus)
- The formula booklet


More information about the Siklos booklets:
1. Advanced Problems in Core Mathematics - 67 problems, some from STEP papers. This is the revised version of the original booklet, based on the current A-Level syllabus. More details are given than the original, with a nice intro. It is a good idea to start with this one.
2. Advanced Problems in Mathematics - 43 problems mostly taken from STEP papers, some adapted. As good as the first one but the problems are taken from older papers, so the Core Maths booklet is probably the most relevant.

Siklos has amalgamated the above booklets into a book: you can download this for free from the link at: http://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/342/advanced-problems-in-mathematics--preparing-for-university


*Siklos has had an awful lot to do with STEP, including writing exams, being the principal examiner, organising the Cambridge Easter prep sessions and advising on the admissions process for Cambridge. These booklets come highly recommended and are a great place to start preparing for STEP.

3. Other Resources

- The Admission Testing Service "preparing for STEP" page - this will be the official place the 2017 papers will be released and is the official site for STEP.

- Individual STEP papers can also be downloaded from The Maths Orchard or Mathshelper.

- A spreadsheet cross-referencing the Siklos booklets to STEP questions

- University of Warwick videos of worked STEP solutions (follow the links from this page).

- Dr. Siklos' videos of worked STEP solutions (follow the links from this page)

- STEP Support programme and in particular their discussion forum is a Cambridge run website to support students taking STEP - it's a replacement to the STEP Easter school that used to be run.

- The STEP Correspondence course (this is outdated), which is designed for early STEP preparation. Assignments are on this page. They also have a forum which might be helpful.- Meikleriggs website is an oldie but has worked to solutions to STEP papers (you might need to sign-up to the site).

- NRICH STEP preparation modules. (I'm not convinced that these are particularly helpful. However they were developed by Cambridge so I would be remiss not to include them on this list.)

- TSR hints and tricks

- STEP hacks and tricks (made by the 2016 year!)

- STEP Questions Database by Dr. Siklos

- Notes on Mechanics by Krollo

4. Solutions

ST edit: We are currently trying to spot and get rid of incorrect STEP solutions, so if you see one in any of TSR's solution threads, please post your own attempt here!

If you're stuck on a problem, you're basically like every single person who has prepared for STEP. Do not look at solutions unless you've thought about a problem seriously (i.e. at least for more than one day), and have asked on this thread for help.If you do need the solutions:- The Megapack has all of the official solutions since 1996. Some of these are basically hints, which are better for you in the long run (because once you see a solution, the question is basically ruined for you).- TSR has worked solutions to most papers.

4. Marking and Grade Boundaries

All questions are marked out of 20. Best 6 answers contribute to your final score.

After a Freedom of Information request, Admissions Testing Service provided the 2014 solutions (with mark schemes). I am releasing these in the public interest to help students prepare for STEP.

Individual links straight to the files are below:

STEP I 2014 mark scheme
STEP II 2014 mark scheme
STEP III 2014 mark scheme

Also, thanks to the correspondence course, we have:

STEP I 2013 mark scheme
STEP II 2013 mark scheme
STEP III 2013 mark scheme

The 2015 markschemes are available on the ATS's website, along with STEP 2011 I. There's also some miscellaneous markschemes here.

Note that the general guidance given regarding marking remains unchanged - see this link for details.Grade boundaries are shown in the picture below




6. FAQ

When should I start?

Whenever you want. January 2018 should be sufficient time for a good Cambridge offer holder to get a 1,1 if they work hard. Using that as a benchmark might be helpful (be honest with yourself about how good you are!)

I need inspiration before the exam...

This post seems very popular. I think it's useful well before the exam though. In particular, the stuff about knowing what ABA \Rightarrow B means, what "if and only if" means, and the fact that x2=x\sqrt {x^2} = |x| comes up again and again in STEP.

Can I get by with just the pure?

Maybe. But the applied is often straightforward and if you ignore it, you'll be in for a shock at uni because your first year may be up to 50% applied. Things that tend to be relatively simple:

- Mechanics: collisions, projectiles
- Statistics: definitions of a pdf/cdf, expectations, counting arguments for probability.

What should I leave as mocks?

Make sure that during your prep you cover the most recent papers as this is the best indication of the current difficulty of STEP. I do not recommend that you have to leave all of the most recent papers as mocks.

You should see this post for a very detailed FAQ - no need to read it all!

7. After the exam

This advice will be updated if the 2018 process if different to 2017.

- Do not register for results until 5 days before the exam. This is due to a quirk in the results page, which has caused issues in the past.

- Some browsers, particularly Chrome, don't work well with the results page. The best browsers seem to be IE and Firefox

.If you are a Cambridge offer holder and have missed your offer:

- Check UCAS Track: your original college may have accepted you anyway. Congrats!

- If not, you may be in the summer pool. Call up your college and provide your A-level UMS - assuming this is good it may help your case. You should keep your emails / phone with you as you may be get told that another college has accepted you. Note that the pool has access to your actual STEP scripts, not just your marks, so they will be looking in detail for who to accept.

- Your best place for advice will be the TSR Summer pool thread, where experienced people will hopefully be on hand to deal with your situation.

No matter what happens, you have become a better mathematician for attempting STEP and if you're good enough to try it, you should have no problems being a success in whatever you do, wherever you end up!











Above all, best of luck!










(edited 5 years ago)

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1
Probably posting this a little early, but there've been a few posts already about STEP on the forum so I figured I may as well. @Notnek do you mind stickying the thread?
Reply 2
Original post by Desmos
Since when did the
Unparseable latex formula:

\sqrt

operator/function return more than value?

Even TSR's official Maths Forum guidelines state that it only returns positive values and that we get negative square roots by multiplying the principle root by -1.


Do you not know what the modulus function is...? The bit you quoted very obviously shows that the square root outputs a single value.
I must say, it's a bit ridiculous that Lancaster now uses STEP - it should be for the top universities only. If too many mediocre places start to use it then the whole thing will lose its value.
Reply 4
Original post by Dot.Cotton
I must say, it's a bit ridiculous that Lancaster now uses STEP - it should be for the top universities only. If too many mediocre places start to use it then the whole thing will lose its value.


How will it lose its value? Its primary focus is to differentiate Cambridge maths offer holders and that's where its value is derived.


Original post by Desmos
Sorry, it's just that I've sometimes seen people use the modulus sign as shorthand to mean both positive/negative values, so I, quite naively, assumed this was the case here.


I've never seen somebody use that shorthand. Are you sure you haven't just been misinterpreting what people mean? It doesn't even make sense for it to mean that
Reply 5
Original post by Dot.Cotton
I must say, it's a bit ridiculous that Lancaster now uses STEP - it should be for the top universities only. If too many mediocre places start to use it then the whole thing will lose its value.


1) Lancaster is an above average university. I'm sure students there will appreciate the elitist, condescending connotations of your post

2) Looking at their offer page, they have a fairly modest alternative offer with a 3 in STEP. As Zacken has said, most who are serious contenders for a top grade are likely to be offer holders elsewhere, and results won't be impacted by more people sitting the exam.

Please can we squash any nonsense like this now? For the avoidance of doubt, this thread is for anyone seriously taking the exam, those aiming for S, S and those who are taking it as a challenge and would be happy with a 3.
Reply 6
Original post by Zacken
...


Some notes for the OP (sorry, I'm in a pedantic mood, it's all minor stuff):

- Probably better if you just delete the outdated stuff (like me assuming Sikos gets money from the paperback, or lack of 2009 TSR thread).

- You've copied my version verbatim and then added to it, so you're getting my opinions attributed to you (feel free if you agree :tongue:), and also refer to yourself in the third person (again, feel free to, just pointing it out in case you can be arsed changing).

- Is the mega pack from my onedrive or has someone bothered to change it? It's worth someone changing it if still linked to mine, I won't have time on a PC to create One updated with the 2017 materials.

- Also, someone should remember to update boundaries with 2017 info when they're released (this really is very early for a thread :tongue: !)

- the link for the ATS notes on proofs etc. is invalid. (I'm not sure what this refers to. Is this new?)

- After my rant in my previous post, we should carefully consider whether some of the advice holds true for all STEP takers. For example, do we think January is enough time for someone not targeting Cambridge to get a 2/3?
(edited 6 years ago)
Reply 7
Original post by shamika
Some notes for the OP (sorry, I'm in a pedantic mood, it's all minor stuff):


Thanks for this!

- Probably better if you just delete the outdated stuff (like me assuming Sikos gets money from the paperback, or lack of 2009 TSR thread).


Gotten rid of this.

- Is the mega pack from my onedrive or has someone bothered to change it? It's worth someone changing it if still linked to mine, I won't have time on a PC to create One updated with the 2017 materials.


It's your megapack, but the link broke sometime last your so I repacked my set of folders (that I'm pretty sure i originally got off your version) and uploaded it to my googledrive. This reminds me that I need to add the 2014-2017 material to it when I find the time.

Also, someone should remember to update boundaries with 2017 info when they're released (this really is very early for a thread :tongue: !)


Agreed. I don't actually know where the spreadsheet that was used to make the colourful STEP boundaries picture, so I might have to make one from scratch unless you remember if the spreadsheet was saved on a google doc or something?

the link for the ATS notes on proofs etc. is invalid. (I'm not sure what this refers to. Is this new?)


I've removed it for now. From what I remember, someone linked me to it last year and I thought it was sufficiently useful. I think it came off the resources page of Durhams's new admissions test on the ATS website, so I just checked there and they seem to have deleted the document and replaced it with "An enhanced test specification will be available later in the year." which ties in with the broken URL to it "blah/notes-on-logic-and-proof-enhanced-test-specification.pdf". So I'll check again sometime later this year and see if they re-release it.

- After my rant in my previous post, we should carefully consider whether some of the advice holds true for all STEP takers. For example, do we think January is enough time for someone not targeting Cambridge to get a 2/3?


At the moment, the advice seems to be targeted at Cambridge offer holders specifically. Could always add in something in general to target others (re your last post), but I still think January is good advice; we want people to leave enough time to focus on their A-Levels as well, as that'll probably be the more important part of their offer if it's not from C/W/I)
Gosh, glad to see this is still going!
Reply 9
Original post by Lord of the Flies
Gosh, glad to see this is still going!


STEP is life. Life is STEP.

Spoiler



Spoiler

(edited 6 years ago)
Original post by shamika
- After my rant in my previous post, we should carefully consider whether some of the advice holds true for all STEP takers. For example, do we think January is enough time for someone not targeting Cambridge to get a 2/3?


Original post by Zacken
At the moment, the advice seems to be targeted at Cambridge offer holders specifically. Could always add in something in general to target others (re your last post), but I still think January is good advice; we want people to leave enough time to focus on their A-Levels as well, as that'll probably be the more important part of their offer if it's not from C/W/I)
I think the difficulty is that the best advice for Cambridge applicants is so different from the best advice for someone looking for a 3 in STEP I that you'd almost need two sets of guidelines. (I often have to remind myself that "not everyone is aiming for 6 good questions per paper" as it is).

To be honest, I have very little idea what the best advice is for someone aiming for a 3 in STEP I. (My guess is that concentrating on stats is a pretty good starting point, if slightly high risk).

Also, suggestion: would meta-discussion about the thread be better put in another thread? Once the actual 2018 candidates start arriving in volume, they won't want to read our ramblings about what should be in the thread!
Reply 11
Are there any feedback sheets for the STEP correspondence assignments??
Hello guys, long time lurker here! (Well that was a cringe intro to this site). I'm going for Cambridge next year so II &III is the eventual goal. Is it best to start with the maths.org step foundation assignments for STEP 1, done up to 7 now, with no real issues other than perhaps logical layout for arguments etc particularly number 2, in that I knew what the question wanted but struggled to get it down. Is this something you pick up naturally over time or do I need to actively correct the wrongdoings of Edexcel beaten into me over c1-4.
Reply 13
Original post by tomahawker314
Hello guys, long time lurker here! (Well that was a cringe intro to this site). I'm going for Cambridge next year so II &III is the eventual goal. Is it best to start with the maths.org step foundation assignments for STEP 1, done up to 7 now, with no real issues other than perhaps logical layout for arguments etc particularly number 2, in that I knew what the question wanted but struggled to get it down. Is this something you pick up naturally over time or do I need to actively correct the wrongdoings of Edexcel beaten into me over c1-4.


There's no 'best' way to start, different people prefer different things. That said, if you're enjoying the foundation assignments and doing well, then proceeding with them isn't a bad idea. Maybe check out the beginning of Siklos's booklet as well if you find the assignments too easy (I forgot what they contain) but otherwise seems like you're on track (if a bit early!)
I have found Siklos' problems in core maths and have read the opening few pages. However he mentions 'dimensionally correct' a few times and I'm not sure what is meant here. Other than that it looks to be a very useful document, thanks bro.
Hi!

I will be applying for economics at Cambridge and I am looking at step to improve my problem solving skills. Is there any particular type of question or specific resources I should look at which is the most similar to the type of maths you find in economics?
Original post by Desmos
Upon reflection, I realised that I almost certainly did misunderstand what people meant. Perhaps it comes from an earlier misconception I had about the difference between a modulus equation and the use of the modulus operator. That is, I didn't use to understand the difference |x| =3 and |-5| = 5.


Dw I used to take modulus to just mean ± before I started STEP; consequently I failed the first STEP question I tried lol (the first one in the Siklos booklet).
These kind of misconceptions generally get cleared up from practising STEP questions and doing more A-Level content - based maths in general.
Reply 17
Original post by moss6
Hi!

I will be applying for economics at Cambridge and I am looking at step to improve my problem solving skills. Is there any particular type of question or specific resources I should look at which is the most similar to the type of maths you find in economics?


I don't think STEP is particularly useful for Economics, it seems rather overkill for it. It's useful for problem solving in general, but there's nothing in specific that applies to Economics.

Original post by tomahawker314
I have found Siklos' problems in core maths and have read the opening few pages. However he mentions 'dimensionally correct' a few times and I'm not sure what is meant here. Other than that it looks to be a very useful document, thanks bro.


Have you heard of dimensional analysis? It's just a matter of checking the dimensions of your answer. If you have an equation A=B, then A has to have the same dimensions as B (so they should both be length, or time, or etc... but they cannot have different dimensions - there are a few "base" dimensions, you can look them up on wikipedia)

Another thing is that when you add two quanitites, they should have the same dimensions, so if you have A = B + C then you should have A,B,C all having the same dimensions. This is a useful quick check to your answer - is your answer for the "time till etc..." really in units of time, are you adding two quantities with the same dimension, etc...
So it's used in context questions more then. Thanks for clearing that up
Was waiting for this thread to start. Thank you very much Zacken. Guess I'll check in here.

Could anyone recommend some resources for Mechanics? I have Understanding Mechanics by A.J. Sadler, but I'd also like to have more resources, as I'm planning to blitz through M1-5 this summer.(school offers just stats :/)

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