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STEP Support Programme

STEP 2 Strategy

I am taking STEP2 tomorrow. I have read that we are advised not to try more than 6 questions. Does anyone disagree with this? What are the chances of getting a 1 if i do 8 questions half-way, completing only 2 or 3? Is there any other particular strategy you would recommend?

If, at some point in the exam, you have 6 partial solutions (or $n$ (almost) full solutions and $6-n$ partial solutions where $n=1,2,...,5$), the best thing to do would be to work on your partial solutions starting with the ones you think you're most likely to make progress on. I would strongly advise against doing more than 6 questions unless you think you have 6 perfect solutions already and a lot of time left (even then, it'd be probably be better to check your existing solutions.) The only exception to this could be perhaps where you have attempted 6 but 1 or more of these were a "false start" where you wrote down a few lines but made no significant progress and couldn't see how to proceed. Good luck!

Thanks

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)