STEP Prep Thread 2019

For STEP 3 2009, I did the part ii proof without induction. Would I be awarded full marks?
What I basically did was I found out the derivative of Pn(x) and then rearranged the given formula to show that it equal 0.

Doesn't request induction anywhere as far as I can see (I assume you mean STEP III Q7ii), so if you've shown it to be true by other means that's fine.

For STEP 3 2009, I did the part 7 ii proof without induction. Would I be awarded full marks?
What I basically did was I found out the derivative of Pn(x) and then rearranged the given formula to show that it equal 0.

Proving the given formula doesn't look like it needs induction. But using the formula to deduce P_n is a polynomial of degree n looks like it's much easier by induction than any other method.

Agree. I did the second part of ii using induction but the first part of proving the formula, I did it without induction, so I was asking whether they might deduct points because the whole question looks essentially like a very long induction problem. And the mark scheme also uses induction hence why I was a little doubtful.

Not sure what mark scheme you're talking about, but neither TSR or the solution provided by Cambridge Assessment use induction to prove the formula.

Where's the STEP gang? Feels a bit lonely here.

Where's the STEP gang? Feels a bit lonely here.

So for anyone that knows the answer to this, do you think it's worth doing MAT even if I don't need it? As in it will lower the offer to warwick and it doesn't look incredibly difficult, I can always revise in the half term. Basically the question is will doing badly harm my application to any uni, cause I don't wanna risk it if I don't need to

So for anyone that knows the answer to this, do you think it's worth doing MAT even if I don't need it? As in it will lower the offer to warwick and it doesn't look incredibly difficult, I can always revise in the half term. Basically the question is will doing badly harm my application to any uni, cause I don't wanna risk it if I don't need to

Thank you for your help, sorry If this is impossible to ask but do you think it will be possible to revise sufficiently for MAT in the half term or maybe slightly before for imperial college and maybe to help with warwick, or is this too ambitious and should change imperial. Side question is will doing badly in MAT negatively affect my chances for cambridge?

Doing badly in MAT will not affect your chances of Warwick and Cambridge. If you have good A-level predictions, the MAT doesn't mean much for Cambridge and Warwick.

Whether half term is enough for MAT only you can say for yourself. Do a past paper and be honest about where you think you are. If you like Imperial then you should try hard for the MAT because they do look at it seriously. If Imperial is not one of your top choices (Warwick is higher up in preferences) then I guess the MAT doesn't really matter.

However, I will say this. Preparing for MAT will definitely help you for interviews at Cambridge. And tbh, the level of difficulty for math interviews at Cambridge is very high, and so I might even go to the extent of saying that MAT is too easy for cambridge interviews. Most cambridge maths applocants will be doing step questions by now preparing for interviews, and if you can handle STEP 2, then you are very much prepared for the MAT.

Thank you so much for your reply; what do you mean by most cambridge maths applicants are doing step questions now? do you mean STEP 1 or 2, cause Idk how I'm supposed to do do step 2 cause I havn't done most of the a level stuff in school yet. I was doing the step foundation questions, which I found fine, so I started going ahead in my normal maths to finish the trigonometry and calculus so I can start on STEP 2. Now I'm doing MAT and am all over the place and a bit stressed lol. Idk what I should be doing, I planned on finishing most of a level maths stuff by half term, then starting properly STEP 2 over half term to prepare for interview but your telling me most are already doing that and eeegh I have MAT to think about and STEP foundation so idk... sorry if that's just a wall of text but I'm just a bit stressed and confused and any advice would be much appreciated


EDIT: If it helps I'm doingmy first MAT 2009 now and haven't really struggled on any question up to F (where I am now) but have had to think fairly hard on each one and taken about 4-5 minutes on each.

Thank you so much for your reply; what do you mean by most cambridge maths applicants are doing step questions now? do you mean STEP 1 or 2, cause Idk how I'm supposed to do do step 2 cause I havn't done most of the a level stuff in school yet. I was doing the step foundation questions, which I found fine, so I started going ahead in my normal maths to finish the trigonometry and calculus so I can start on STEP 2. Now I'm doing MAT and am all over the place and a bit stressed lol. Idk what I should be doing, I planned on finishing most of a level maths stuff by half term, then starting properly STEP 2 over half term to prepare for interview but your telling me most are already doing that and eeegh I have MAT to think about and STEP foundation so idk... sorry if that's just a wall of text but I'm just a bit stressed and confused and any advice would be much appreciated


EDIT: If it helps I'm doingmy first MAT 2009 now and haven't really struggled on any question up to F (where I am now) but have had to think fairly hard on each one and taken about 4-5 minutes on each.