How to use the STEP Support Programme

What is the STEP Support Programme?

The STEP Support Programme is a course made up of assignments designed to develop your problem solving skills, in order to help you prepare both for sitting STEP and studying Maths at university. It has been created by Cambridge mathematicians who have taken STEP themselves and have many years of experience in supporting school students with their STEP preparation. The programme is particularly designed to provide help if your school cannot offer support with STEP preparation.

Before you begin looking at the assignments, it is really important to keep in mind that STEP questions are hard. STEP questions are longer than A-level questions and require more persistence and insight, so don’t be afraid if you find them difficult - you’re supposed to! The best way to get better at STEP is to do STEP questions, and the more you do the better!

You will get stuck. Here are some tips that might help you to get unstuck:

Try a 'special case' (e.g. substitute some numbers in)
Try drawing a graph or diagram
If the answer is given, try working 'backwards' (and write up your argument the 'correct' way around)
If you are stuck on a later part, see if you can use the earlier parts to help (STEP questions are usually inter-connected)
Try a 'guess' (e.g. for integration by substitution – the substitutions are not usually given to you)
Have a break! Go for a walk, have some dinner, sleep on it before returning to the problem

This programme is designed to consolidate and extend your knowledge and problem solving skills, so even if a particular assignment feels like revisiting familiar territory we encourage you not to skip it. Working through all these assignments will help improve your mathematical fluency and build your confidence.

Using the Assignments

The Foundation modules are intended as a structured course, which means that there is a logical order to them. We tend to prove results (usually in the warm ups) before we use them, and if there are two STEP questions testing similar things the preparation for the earlier one will be longer. If you are intending to sit STEP 2 and 3 in year 13 then we strongly recommend that you start working through these modules in year 12, in order to develop your problem solving skills before attempting the STEP 2 (and later STEP 3) modules. However, you do not have to do them in order, or do every one, if you have only limited time or start the programme later.

The STEP 2 and STEP 3 modules are designed to build upon the work you have done on the Foundation modules, and are aimed at year 13 students. Each one focuses on a different area of the STEP 2 or STEP 3 specification and contains 4 STEP questions. There are no preparation questions for these, but if you are stuck you can look at the "hints" file to give you some starting points. There is also a "solutions" file and "topic notes" available for each module.

See this page for more details on the different types of module.

If you have any questions about the assignments, or STEP in general, or feedback about our resources you can email us at step@maths.cam.ac.uk.