I'm asking this question here because I feel like an answer from you guys would be generally more valuable than that of other A level students.

For my AS grades, I got...

C1 = 88
C2 = 95
M1 = 82
FP1 = 89
S1 = 80
S2 = 83

I got an A in my Chemistry AS, though I'm not continuing that for A2 and it was also a scraped grade. I got an A in my Physics mock, but I don't know what UMS it was.

Hi all,
It is great to see the forum being used! Over the summer staff are taking some holidays, and our students may be having a well deserved break as well. We will respond to all your questions, but it may take a little longer than usual.

Okay, now I'm not sure if this is a mistake or if I'm doing something wrong. [less than or equal to is marked here as <~] I got the correct solution via ((pqrz)^0.25) <~ ((pq)^0.5 + (rz)^0.5)/2, after which I put this equal to (p + q + r + z)/4, in reference to part ii.

I don't understand part c at all. For the last part of it, I didn't use binary, but series formulae. I got to the same answer, so all is fine there. But with the proving of 2^n (and by extension the part ii b), I have no clue why they doing what they're doing. I can see that the 2*2*2*...*2=2^n but I don't see where the number of options for the weight comes into it. Maybe it's because I'm tired, but could someone please explain? This is probably the hardest assignment I've come across and I've used the hints a bit too much.

It states that the solution can be found via (X - y)^2 + (y - z)^2 + (y - X)^2. This is wrong. The last bracket should have X and z, not X and y.

For the step question where did we get the 175 and 1323? Also why did we use the cases where x=-1 and x=1?

So the hints (I looked because I was knee deep in algebra and didn't know what to do) said that you take (k1 - 1)...(k4 - 1) = 175 and write it as it's factors. 1, 5, 5, 7. The numbers that k1 could hence be is 12. These numbers are 8,-6,6,-4,2,0,26,-24,36,-34,176,-174.

It then said that via the k1k2k3k4 = 576, k1 could only be factors of 1,2 AND 3. This was said to eliminate 5 values, but it doesn't. The values it eliminates are 0,8,-4,26,34,2,176.

Am I reading something wrong, am I not seeing something?

Hello everyone !

I create this topic to ask which theorems we are allowed to use when answering STEP, STEPII and STEPIII questions.

Can we use any theorem we know ?
(For instance, for the STEPI Assignment 5 Warm down, I first thought of using the pigeonhole principle. In fact, this was not fit - however, had it been useful, could I have used it albeit we did not see it in class ?
Another example could be a basic use of geometric similarities, like homotheties. )

Or are we bound to use the theorems seen at school ?

Hello everybody !

It seems to me there is a minor in STEP I assignment 7 STEP question solution.

In the solution, it's said : "You can then use (k(1) + 1) (k(2) + 1) (k(3) + 1) (k(4) + 1) = 1323 to eliminate everything but three values (the three solution values, 2; 6 and 8). However, I think -4 is also a possible value since -4 | 576; (-4 - 1) | 173; and (-4 + 1) | 1323.

Hi, while following the assignments I've been ignoring the blue text unless/until I'm stuck - is this the right approach, or were the assignments designed with the expectation that we should read and inwardly digest the blue text _before_ a first attempt at a question?
I ask because by my time-keeping I'm spending around 4 hours on each assignment, and I expect* I could halve that if were to read the blue text first, but I fear I would then lose the benefit of training the brain to seek the paths that will lead to a solution.