skip to content

STEP Support Programme

Syllabus (Statistics)

Hello,

I am not from the UK, hence I am not doing A-levels,
I am a bit confused with the syllabuses. I am taking STEP II & III.

I have found some formulae and statistical tables on the STEP booklet which I think don't fit into any of the topics listed on the official STEP syllabus. In particular: correlation and regression, distribution-free (non-parametric) tests, the T distribution, the x^2 distribution, Wilcoxon signed rank test and Wilcoxon rank sum test...

Are these topics required? If not, why are they on booklet?

Also, I know that Sampling is included in STEP III, but are all the formulae on the Sampling Distributions section needed?

Similarly, I believe none of the formulae on Matrix transformations and Numerical Mathematics (apart from the trapezium rule) is mentioned on the syllabus...

Thank you

The formula booklet is lifted from an A-Level Exam Board (OCR in particular) and used by STEP. So there will be some stuff that's on the 'STEP' formula booklet but will never be (in practice) examined. Certainly the formula booklet is a superset of the formulas you actually need. The specification details everything you need to know, don't worry about anything beyond that.

Thank you!

No problem.

Useful Links

Underground Mathematics: Selected worked STEP questions

STEP Question database

University of Cambridge Mathematics Faculty: What do we look for?

University of Cambridge Mathematics Faculty: Information about STEP

University of Cambridge Admissions Office: Undergraduate course information for Mathematics

Stephen Siklos' "Advanced Problems in Mathematics" book (external link)

MEI: Worked solutions to STEP questions (external link)

OCR: Exam board information about STEP (external link)

AMSP (Advanced Maths Support programme): Support for University Admission Tests (external link)