What is the Best STRATEGY for Sitting the STEP Maths exam for Cambridge

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Hey everyone, welcome back to the channel. If you're new here, I'm Ryan, a mathematician and ex-STEP marker. So, exams are coming up. STEP is just a few days away, and hopefully if you've been watching this channel, you should be starting to feel pretty solid on the maths you're doing. And if you haven't been watching the channel, I'll give you a bit of an unbiased recommendation, please watch, it's probably worth it.

[00:00:17]Today, what I want to do is talk about how to get those final extra marks, how to boost yourself up to that one.

[00:00:22]Because one of the most important things we can look at is exam strategy. The most important on STEP compared to any other exams, because I've seen it turn really good mathematicians to ones that underperform in the exam, and ones you wouldn't expect to perform really well to getting those ones. So, it is really, really important. So, I'm going to give you seven tips on how to gain those final extra marks, how to have good strategy for that exam. And I'm going to start off with the one of the most important tips I can give, spend time choosing the questions at the start of the paper. You want to be spending 5 to 10 minutes reading every single question before jumping in and doing any maths.

[00:00:57]Don't just get sucked into question one because it's in question number one.

[00:01:00]Scan everything and pick your questions.

[00:01:02]What you're looking for is the topics you're strongest at, the ones where you can see an immediate approach to how to do the question, or ones that you've seen similar questions to before, probably in the past papers. But, don't just skim read the questions, you have to look through them in detail. Just because it starts on a certain topic doesn't mean that it's the same topic throughout. A question might start with differential equations, but then it might quickly turn into a proof by induction. And if you're not good with proof by induction, this could be one of the worst questions for you. So, please read it thoroughly, look at all the parts of the questions and make sure you know what the questions actually wanting you to do. Don't just do them in order thinking you'll do it 1 2 3 4 5 6.

[00:01:37]They're all difficult. There is no order to the difficulty of these STEP questions. Pick the questions that suit you best, make sure to spend that time at the start reading so that you're best set up to answer those questions. Now, tip number two, I've spoke about this time and time again, but I'll repeat it here because it is really, really important. And that's writing clearly and logically. And that's what essentially makes us really good mathematicians. You read a good paper and it's written out very clearly and logically. Now, STEP isn't just about getting the right answer. If it was, a lot of people would get more marks. But what markers are actually looking for is a very logical process. They can read down your page and understand what you did and more importantly why you did it.

[00:02:17]Have you give the justification for why each step is true. Now, you don't need to write an essay for this. A line or two will be perfectly fine. If it's a very visual thing, maybe a diagram will help, especially if it's say geometry or mechanics. They can always help and they'll help the examiner. You might even get extra marks for doing a very good diagram. So, when you're in the midst of it, don't just do the algebra, just keep writing sentences or two to explain what you're doing and why. Even just small titles can help. For example, if you're doing a proof or a show that, it's even more important because you need to say why every step is valid.

[00:02:50]Give a bit of justification for it. It's very important to write clearly in maths. It's It's one of them things that make or break a good mathematician. Can you explain your reasoning logically? Do you actually understand what's going on as you're going through this process?

[00:03:03]Now, tip number three is look at what the language is in the question. And this one's really important and it's probably somewhat obvious, but every STEP question is written very precisely.

[00:03:13]They use specific words to help guide you through the question. If you see the words hence or deduce, that generally means use the past answer to help you solve this next part. Something you've done in part two is going to help you solve part three. Don't go off and try and do it from scratch. It's generally not going to work and even if the question says hence or otherwise, the otherwise method will probably take you longer than using the hence. So, my recommendation is to, if possible, use hence, use the previous part of the question. If the question says something along lines of state or write down, it's generally not going to be worth very many marks. It should be something you can write down, you can literally just write down without doing any maths any further. If you see yourself and you're writing down loads of maths to try and work this out, take a step back, something's probably amiss somewhere.

[00:03:59]So, go back and see if you can work out what you should be given as your answer.

[00:04:03]And then we have verify. Verify is pretty easy. They will give you the answer and get you to double check that it works. So, take their answer and plug it back in and then show that it works as an answer. And finally, the last one would be prove or show that. These ones are the more intense ones. You will have to go through from scratch, write it out, as we said, clearly and logically, going through all your steps until you get to the required answer that they have given. These words aren't there just for padding, although STEM questions seem to have be adding more and more padding as we go, but these keywords are there as instructions.

[00:04:34]They're meant to guide you in how to find that answer out. So, please read them carefully and use them as you're going. Tip number four. This can be a really frustrating one and it's one I actually see quite a lot when I'm watching students work their way through questions. And that is not looking back at what they've done previously. The way STEM questions are set up, they're generally set up in a certain order, one, two, and then three. And what often happens is that in part three, you'll probably use what you've done in parts one and two. Whether that's a technique that you've learned or that's an actual fact or statement that you've proved in parts one and two. This is done intentionally.

[00:05:08]>> [music] >> They're trying to teach you something in parts one and two and then get you to apply it independently in part three.

[00:05:14]And what often happens is I see students get stuck in that part three wondering, "Oh, I don't have a clue how to do this thing." When actually they've already proved it or already done it in parts one and two. So, as a tip, it's a really good idea to go back and have a look through your previous parts. It just might help you push past that really difficult bit on a question you're doing. Tip number five here is really, really important for your strategy for the exam. And that is aim for breadth of questions, not perfection. Remember in the exam, you can attempt up to six questions. Never attempt more, it's just a waste of your time. Just do the six.

[00:05:48]Don't do any more. However, what I'm going to say is aim to do six partially near to full hopefully questions instead of four perfect questions. This might not be something you realized before, but to get a one in step, the average mark that you need is around 65. If you divide that by six questions, that's just under 11 per question, which if you think about it is just over half. You need to get just over half on six questions and then you get a one. And if you nail one question getting 18, 19, 20, that means on the rest of them you can get less than half. So, don't focus on getting four perfect answers. Instead go for six okay to good attempts. That will get you the marks you need.

[00:06:29]Remember for step, the early part of the question are the most accessible. It's where you can more easily pick up marks.

[00:06:35]If you're spending 45 minutes trying to get the last three or four marks on a question, that time would be way better spent trying to get five or six of the early marks on a different question. Cuz otherwise you're just wasting your time a little bit. Six decent attempts pretty much beats out four perfect attempts.

[00:06:51]Keep that in mind as you're going through. You don't need to get perfection. You just need to get pretty good on about six questions. With that in mind, tip six becomes even more important and it's something you're taught a lot about in A level, but it's even more important with step here.

[00:07:05]Since we're no longer going for 20 out of 20, we're going for what like 12 out of 20, it's okay to skip parts of a question, especially if it's a show that it's a prove that. They can sometimes be difficult, but if it's a show that or a prove that, they've given you the answer at the end of that question. It is perfectly fine to skip that part and move on to the part afterwards and see how many marks you can pick up from the rest of that question. You just need to get over 12. If you miss out five in the middle, that's perfectly fine if you can get the rest. So, don't worry too much about skipping bits. It's perfectly fine. There's no reason not to do that and try and pick up more marks later on in the question. And at the end of the paper you can always come back and see if you can nail that prove that. And next tip is again keeping in mind the fact that we don't need to nail every single question. But tip number seven is keep an eye on the time. When we're doing STEP, we can get really stuck into a problem, we can get stressed if it's not going our way, and we can kind of lose track of the time and end up spending an hour on one question. We just don't have the time for that.

[00:08:00]Again, remember we're not trying to nail every single question we do. A good 12-15 marks on every question is perfectly fine, and that's a good attempt. Keep an eye on that time. Be spending 25 to 30 minutes maximum on a question, and then move on. You need to learn to whether to commit to something if you think you can push through and get it out, or give up and move on to another question. And if you've got time at the end, then come back and then have another go at it. That's perfectly fine to do, but don't waste too much time on a question just for a few extra marks.

[00:08:31]Make your strategy such that we don't need polished answers. We just need to get enough marks, move on, get some more marks, and then we can essentially build our way up to that one by getting six good attempts. That's all the tips I have for today. So, in this last month before exams, start and practice picking out questions that are good for you.

[00:08:50]Again, we only need six. And also practice that time allocation. So, that's about 25 to 30 minutes per question. Be quite harsh on yourself.

[00:08:58]Remember when we only need to get 11 out of 20, which is a good solution, not a perfect solution. If you found this video useful, please give it a like and subscribe. It genuinely helps me get the content in front of people who do. It will help [music] with these exams, whether it's STEP, TMUA, or just university exams in general. But if you have any questions, drop them in the comments, and I'll try and get to them as quickly as I can. If this is the last video you see from me before your exams, good luck with them. I really hope they go well. Remember all of the techniques you've learned, all the maths you've learned. You've put in the work. Now go and show off and show how well you can do in that exam. I will see you in the next one. Bye.