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STEP Support Programme

Complex STEP III

A lot of the material I'm seeing in the complex section for STEP III is completely new. Any suggestions for a good resource to learn this stuff? For instance, I had never seen De'Moivres theorem.

I got an Edexcel FP3 book to learn the hyperbolics and integration content in STEP 3, I found this quite helpful. For complex numbers it may be worth getting the FP2 Edexcel book to do practice questions from as it has a large complex chapter. You could just get the appropriate book from the exam board that you are studying since the book style will be more familiar to you.

Hope this is somewhat helpful :)

Thank you :-)

I also am having this problem, but for mechanics and statistics. In particular,
y = xtanα − gx^2/2V^2cos^2(α)
is on the STEP II syllabus and isn't in M1 or M2 for AQA

You can derive the equation for the trajectory of a projectile by taking the horizontal and vertical components of the initial velocity, $V\cos\alpha$ and $V\sin\alpha$ in your equation above, and then using the equation $s=ut+\frac{1}{2}at^2$ to get expressions for the x and y component of distance travelled in terms of t.

If you rearrange the x equation to get an expression for t, and substitute this into your y equation, you should get the trajectory equation quoted above.

If you have any other questions about the syllabus, do start a new thread and we'll do our best to answer!

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)