Math Games | Beyond Medium.com
Join us, my friends
I am starting this Substack newsletter for Math Games because I want to tackle problems with you that LLMs cannot fully solve yet. If you enjoy my puzzles on Medium and are mathematically ambitious, you will want to enhance your current mathematical arsenal by working through Cambridge University’s STEP Exams with me.
The STEP exams are taken by some of the brightest and mathematically capable students, who intend to study mathematics at the University of Cambridge. They are designed so that only knowledge of A-level Maths & Further Maths is required, which means if you have a good working knowledge of high school mathematics, you definitely can have a go at these problems.
Each STEP paper has a mix of pure mathematics, mechanics and statistics & probability questions. The final score is based on the six highest scoring questions that the test taker completes. Each question is marked out of 20, so the maximum mark one can attain is 120.
There are five grades, which are (from highest to lowest) S, 1, 2, 3, and U.
I took STEP II back in 2022 when applying to universities in the UK, and subsequently achieved a score of 2, which placed me in the top 37% of test takers. Apart from the STEP, I also took the Oxford MAT exam and was invited to attend an interview to read mathematics at Oxford. Ultimately, I completed my maths degree at Warwick.
Prior to that, I also achieved a Gold Award in the Senior Maths Challenge and took part in British Olympiad Round 1. If my memory serves me, I got a score of 111/125 in the maths challenge!
So I hope you will join in me in our journey of solving the entire Cambridge STEP archive from 1987 to the present day.
Every Sunday at 4 p.m. GMT, a new problem is published alongside its complete solution, with handwritten notes and diagrams.
Subscribing makes a real difference to my life — it’s what allows me to keep writing mathematics rather than doing something else. But it also means something beyond that: together, we keep recreational mathematics alive for the generations who come after us, and preserve one of the finest things human minds have ever done with themselves.
