Official Cambridge Maths 2020 Offer Holders Thread

hello gang gang, how are the STEP papers going? I'm doing well on old ones but I want to move off of them quickly to do harder new ones

Anyone going to the STEP support thing later today?

Me at school on Monday vs Me at Cambridge yesterday (not really, but this probably applies to someone):

"Parabolic polynomial"

How did you find the STEP support day?

The walkthrough on the integration/inequality question was good. The Fibonacci question was not so good. I wished one of the students referred to STEP as a "STEP-ladder" instead of a ramp from A-level to Uni maths - a missed opportunity! I'm shy, so didn't talk to many people, there was a lot of awkward waiting involved. I was half-asleep during the "My name is... and I like..." and forgot most of the people in the circle.

Hello, I have an offer from Queens', my offer is 1,1 on STEP 2 and 3. I'm a home student and I already did my A levels last year with A* in Maths, Further, Biology and English.

Got CV right now so not studying much for this week. Generally, I am feeling really pessimistic about STEP. I don't see myself getting 1,1; but I was also very pessimistic about my A levels and they turned out ok.

I started around early January, doing the 1998-2003 papers very casually, and often looking up solutions because I was so unused to the style. After 2004, I started doing them properly, mostly timed for 3 hours for 6 questions and untimed for the rest from each paper. I scored between 55-65 on STEP 2/3 and 70-80 on STEP 1 on the timed ones. I'm starting 2009 STEP 2 right now. I've stopped doing 3 hour papers and do all the questions, 30 minutes timed each and then take the best 6 of all the attempts. Sometimes a good few of them take longer than 30 minutes and for these, I just change the pen I use and don't give myself marks I gain after the time limit.

I'm a bit ahead of where I should be, so I think I can afford to take it easy while I recover for the next week or two. I'm giving myself 10 days for the three papers from every year and expect to finish 2019's papers by June 9.

I've sort of identified my weakness and strengths already, some areas are doomed, others just need more work, I think. Obviously, I can't do every "strength" question of mine as well as I'd like and some "weaknesses" aren't completely hopeless either. But in general I'd be more likely to try the former topics in the real thing and less likely for the latter ones.

Strengths:
- Continuous probability functions (the ones that involve calculus work)
- Integration
- Evaluation of sums
- DEs
- Mechanics questions that are mostly just DEs and Calculus
- Matrix Algebra (there isn't much STEP stuff for this but I've always loved Linear Algebra and done a fair few questions for them beyond A-level)
- Statics (moments, centres of masses not involving integration, friction etc)

Weaknesses:
- Geometry (vector, complex, 3d, Euclidean; I'm just awful at everything geometry except the easy diagrams and trigonometry for mechanics)
- "If and only if" proof heavy questions for polynomials (proving both ways is usually an excruciating chore)
- CeNtReS oF mAsS (by integration). I never even understood the FM2 chapter 3 on actually deriving the integrals, so this is beyond doomed. Coupled with how no past STEP questions (none!) actually have centres of mass AND integration, this is hopeless.
- Moment of Inertia, Moment generating functions (don't even know anything about these)
- Simple harmonic motion (I forgot all of it... STEP tested it directly a total of two times between 98 and 08 LOL)

Besides these, I have some "gray areas" with topics that I think are mostly simple but that I just haven't shown myself enough consistency with:

- recurrence relations
- elementary probability/combinatorics
- projectiles
- collisions
- probability with a new idea (usually of some analytic flavor) introduced

So I'm trying to improve specially on the above 5. I also think co-ordinate geometry and parametric curves demand a lot from me often but I've been able to do them to an ok degree usually.

If in the real exam we have a continuous PDF on STEP 2, matrix algebra on 2 AND 3 like in 2019, and at least one approachable mechanics question in both papers, it might not be completely out of the question for me to scrape by with a 1. I don't think this will happen. I hope the rest of you that make it get the most out of your degree

Hello, I have an offer from Queens', my offer is 1,1 on STEP 2 and 3. I'm a home student and I already did my A levels last year with A* in Maths, Further, Biology and English.

Got CV right now so not studying much for this week. Generally, I am feeling really pessimistic about STEP. I don't see myself getting 1,1; but I was also very pessimistic about my A levels and they turned out ok.

I started around early January, doing the 1998-2003 papers very casually, and often looking up solutions because I was so unused to the style. After 2004, I started doing them properly, mostly timed for 3 hours for 6 questions and untimed for the rest from each paper. I scored between 55-65 on STEP 2/3 and 70-80 on STEP 1 on the timed ones. I'm starting 2009 STEP 2 right now. I've stopped doing 3 hour papers and do all the questions, 30 minutes timed each and then take the best 6 of all the attempts. Sometimes a good few of them take longer than 30 minutes and for these, I just change the pen I use and don't give myself marks I gain after the time limit.

I'm a bit ahead of where I should be, so I think I can afford to take it easy while I recover for the next week or two. I'm giving myself 10 days for the three papers from every year and expect to finish 2019's papers by June 9.

I've sort of identified my weakness and strengths already, some areas are doomed, others just need more work, I think. Obviously, I can't do every "strength" question of mine as well as I'd like and some "weaknesses" aren't completely hopeless either. But in general I'd be more likely to try the former topics in the real thing and less likely for the latter ones.

Strengths:
- Continuous probability functions (the ones that involve calculus work)
- Integration
- Evaluation of sums
- DEs
- Mechanics questions that are mostly just DEs and Calculus
- Matrix Algebra (there isn't much STEP stuff for this but I've always loved Linear Algebra and done a fair few questions for them beyond A-level)
- Statics (moments, centres of masses not involving integration, friction etc)

Weaknesses:
- Geometry (vector, complex, 3d, Euclidean; I'm just awful at everything geometry except the easy diagrams and trigonometry for mechanics)
- "If and only if" proof heavy questions for polynomials (proving both ways is usually an excruciating chore)
- CeNtReS oF mAsS (by integration). I never even understood the FM2 chapter 3 on actually deriving the integrals, so this is beyond doomed. Coupled with how no past STEP questions (none!) actually have centres of mass AND integration, this is hopeless.
- Moment of Inertia, Moment generating functions (don't even know anything about these)
- Simple harmonic motion (I forgot all of it... STEP tested it directly a total of two times between 98 and 08 LOL)

Besides these, I have some "gray areas" with topics that I think are mostly simple but that I just haven't shown myself enough consistency with:

- recurrence relations
- elementary probability/combinatorics
- projectiles
- collisions
- probability with a new idea (usually of some analytic flavor) introduced

So I'm trying to improve specially on the above 5. I also think co-ordinate geometry and parametric curves demand a lot from me often but I've been able to do them to an ok degree usually.

If in the real exam we have a continuous PDF on STEP 2, matrix algebra on 2 AND 3 like in 2019, and at least one approachable mechanics question in both papers, it might not be completely out of the question for me to scrape by with a 1. I don't think this will happen. I hope the rest of you that make it get the most out of your degree

If you like we could work together; I suck at statics the most(mechanics in general) while I can cover your weaknesses except geometry and projectiles is a bit iffy for me. I think the way you do it by attempting each question in 30 minutes is good too but if you can do a question in less than 30 minutes you could give yourself that leftover time to try the other ones. I'm not too sure what you mean by 'probability with a new idea' though.

Did you go to the step state school day? There was a question on complex number geometry which I think was good, Step 3 2009 Q6. S2 2012 Q6 from there too was also another good geometry question but focusing on shapes so things like cosine rule.

For recurrence relations, I feel like induction is a good way to go about things because it gives you a lot to work with. I think collisions are mostly about algebraic manipulation, use the coefficient of restitution, 0<e<1 and conservation of momentum and the rest of it is good algebra and wise choice in notation.

By "probability with a new idea" I mean things like 98-S3-Q13 (introducing the idea of MLEs) or 16-S3-Q12 (you are given something new and are expected to use it in the rest of the question). I couldn't go to the STEP school day because I was ill and had to self-isolate. Right now I'm on 2009 STEP 2 (finished the applied section quite badly, got the 8 pure left) so I should get to that complex geometry problem soon. I'll probably end up doing the 2012 one quite a while later though (after finishing the three papers for 2010 I'm thinking about doing all the STEP 1 papers from 11-19 before doing 2 and then 3). Recurrence relations really do feel simple in principle but they make it difficult sometimes, like by making it so that there are two things that need to be proven concurrently via induction (assume two things - 2 induction hypothesis that work together etc)

Regarding, working together, I think that's a good idea. If you want to use some instant messaging platform for convenience, feel free to PM me which one.

Hello, I have an offer from Queens', my offer is 1,1 on STEP 2 and 3. I'm a home student and I already did my A levels last year with A* in Maths, Further, Biology and English.

Got CV right now so not studying much for this week. Generally, I am feeling really pessimistic about STEP. I don't see myself getting 1,1; but I was also very pessimistic about my A levels and they turned out ok.

I started around early January, doing the 1998-2003 papers very casually, and often looking up solutions because I was so unused to the style. After 2004, I started doing them properly, mostly timed for 3 hours for 6 questions and untimed for the rest from each paper. I scored between 55-65 on STEP 2/3 and 70-80 on STEP 1 on the timed ones. I'm starting 2009 STEP 2 right now. I've stopped doing 3 hour papers and do all the questions, 30 minutes timed each and then take the best 6 of all the attempts. Sometimes a good few of them take longer than 30 minutes and for these, I just change the pen I use and don't give myself marks I gain after the time limit.

I'm a bit ahead of where I should be, so I think I can afford to take it easy while I recover for the next week or two. I'm giving myself 10 days for the three papers from every year and expect to finish 2019's papers by June 9.

I've sort of identified my weakness and strengths already, some areas are doomed, others just need more work, I think. Obviously, I can't do every "strength" question of mine as well as I'd like and some "weaknesses" aren't completely hopeless either. But in general I'd be more likely to try the former topics in the real thing and less likely for the latter ones.

Strengths:
- Continuous probability functions (the ones that involve calculus work)
- Integration
- Evaluation of sums
- DEs
- Mechanics questions that are mostly just DEs and Calculus
- Matrix Algebra (there isn't much STEP stuff for this but I've always loved Linear Algebra and done a fair few questions for them beyond A-level)
- Statics (moments, centres of masses not involving integration, friction etc)

Weaknesses:
- Geometry (vector, complex, 3d, Euclidean; I'm just awful at everything geometry except the easy diagrams and trigonometry for mechanics)
- "If and only if" proof heavy questions for polynomials (proving both ways is usually an excruciating chore)
- CeNtReS oF mAsS (by integration). I never even understood the FM2 chapter 3 on actually deriving the integrals, so this is beyond doomed. Coupled with how no past STEP questions (none!) actually have centres of mass AND integration, this is hopeless.
- Moment of Inertia, Moment generating functions (don't even know anything about these)
- Simple harmonic motion (I forgot all of it... STEP tested it directly a total of two times between 98 and 08 LOL)

Besides these, I have some "gray areas" with topics that I think are mostly simple but that I just haven't shown myself enough consistency with:

- recurrence relations
- elementary probability/combinatorics
- projectiles
- collisions
- probability with a new idea (usually of some analytic flavor) introduced

So I'm trying to improve specially on the above 5. I also think co-ordinate geometry and parametric curves demand a lot from me often but I've been able to do them to an ok degree usually.

If in the real exam we have a continuous PDF on STEP 2, matrix algebra on 2 AND 3 like in 2019, and at least one approachable mechanics question in both papers, it might not be completely out of the question for me to scrape by with a 1. I don't think this will happen. I hope the rest of you that make it get the most out of your degree