Free · 2 mock papers, 12 questions · One order to work them in
STEP: Start Here
Preparing for STEP the way you prepared for A-level is the most common mistake, and it is expensive: it produces a candidate who can do the mathematics and cannot write the argument. This is an order to work in, counting back from the sitting, with a check at the end of each phase so you can tell whether it worked.
Not sure where to start? 3 places to go
Start with your question
Why visitors arrive: Your offer depends on a STEP grade, you have a number of months, and you do not know what to do first.
Your question: What should I be doing now, and how do I know when to move on?
You may also be asking
- How far ahead should I start preparing?
- Should I work papers timed or untimed at first?
- How do I practise choosing which questions to attempt?
- What do I do if I am starting late?
- How do I know a phase is finished?
Where to go next
- The method library: Read this before drilling papers
- First mock paper: Work it untimed to begin with
- Mark your own attempt: The check that ends the first phase
- Nothing here is new material. Every link goes to a page already published on this site. This page is the sequence, not the content.
- The dates are derived, not typed. Each phase is anchored to one sitting date held in the site configuration, so the windows move together. That date is this site's assumption: check the official one for your cycle and treat the windows as approximate.
- Start late without panicking. If you are arriving part way through, the phase marked you are here is where to pick up. Work forward from today rather than trying to catch up on everything before it.
- There is no diagnostic here, deliberately. The ESAT diagnostic scores multiple-choice answers, and STEP has none to score. Turning proof questions into multiple choice would measure the one thing STEP does not test. The equivalent here is marking your own attempt against a written mark scheme, which is a harder exercise and a more useful one.
- Which paper you need is in your offer. Read the offer rather than assuming, and check the official specification for what each paper assumes. Those requirements change between cycles and no tutor's summary should be trusted over the source.
The plan
Seven phases. Each one names what you are trying to achieve, what to work through, and how to tell when you are done with it. The check at the end of a phase is the part worth taking seriously: it is what stops you moving on because the weeks have passed rather than because the work is done.
This plan counts back from an assumed sitting on 3 June 2027. That date is this site's configuration, not an announcement: check the official STEP page for the date in your cycle and shift the phases to match.
[01] · 26 to 22 weeks out · 3 Dec to 30 Dec 2026
Find out what you are actually being asked to do
STEP is not a harder A-level paper, and most of the preparation candidates do first is preparation for the wrong exam. Read what the paper rewards, then read the shapes of argument it asks for, before working a single question.
Done when you can say, in one sentence each, what an unjustified step costs you and why the parts of a question are a ladder.
[02] · 22 to 18 weeks out · 31 Dec 2026 to 27 Jan 2027
Work one paper untimed, and mark it yourself
Take one question and give it as long as it needs, with no clock and no solution in front of you. Then mark your own write-up against the mark scheme. The gap between what you reached and what you justified is what the rest of the plan is for.
Done when you have marked one full attempt of your own and can name the specific step you failed to justify.
[03] · 18 to 13 weeks out · 28 Jan to 3 Mar 2027
Build the techniques, one family at a time
Work through the method families rather than through the papers. When a question defeats you, find its family in the library, read the entry, and go back to the question rather than to the solution.
Done when you can name the family a question belongs to before you know how to do it.
[04] · 13 to 9 weeks out · 4 Mar to 31 Mar 2027
STEP 3, if your offer names it
The STEP 3 papers assume the full Further Mathematics content and lean harder on sustained technical work. Skip this phase only if your offer does not name STEP 3: check the offer rather than assuming.
Done when a STEP 3 question takes you the same effort a STEP 2 one did at the start of the plan.
[05] · 9 to 5 weeks out · 1 Apr to 28 Apr 2027
Practise choosing, not just solving
Deciding which questions to attempt is itself a skill, and it is the one nobody practises. Read a whole paper, pick your questions from the parts rather than from the topics, and commit. Then check whether the ones you skipped were actually the harder ones.
Done when your choice of questions, made in the first few minutes, matches the ones you would choose knowing the answers.
[06] · 5 to 2 weeks out · 29 Apr to 19 May 2027
Write-ups, and only write-ups
At this point the mathematics is what it is, and the remaining marks are in how you write. Take questions you have already solved and write them again properly: state what you are doing and why, name the earlier result each part consumes, and handle the equality case and the degenerate case explicitly.
Done when a marker could follow your solution without reconstructing anything, and when you stop losing marks you had already earned.
[07] · 2 to 0 weeks out · 20 May to 2 Jun 2027
Stop adding, start consolidating
Nothing new. Re-read your own marked attempts and the reservations printed on the questions you found hardest. A complete, well-argued answer to a small number of questions beats fragments of many, and that is decided by nerve rather than by knowledge.
Done when you are choosing questions calmly and finishing the ones you start.
Four things that decide the grade, and none of them is knowing more mathematics
[01]
Finish fewer, properly
A complete, well-argued answer to a small number of questions beats fragments of many. Most candidates lose more to abandoning questions half way than to being unable to do them.
[02]
Read every part first
The last part usually tells you what the first part was for. A question that looks impossible at part three is normally reachable through what part one handed you, and reading forwards changes what you do with the opening.
[03]
Justify, do not assert
An unjustified step loses marks even when it leads somewhere true. Saying which earlier result you are using, and why a step is valid, is where a large share of the marks live.
[04]
Choose before you commit
Deciding which questions to attempt is a skill, and almost nobody practises it. Read the parts rather than the topic headings: a familiar topic with a nasty final part is a worse bet than an unfamiliar one that ladders cleanly.
Where to go from here
Every paper, practice question and guide on this site is free to read. These are the things worth doing next.
- Find out where you actually stand - Fifteen questions, twenty minutes, scored instantly, with a worked solution for every one you miss
- Practise by topic at full paper depth - Practice questions in every module, filed by topic and skill, each worked in full
- See what can actually be checked about this tutor - What is published, counted from the pages themselves, and the credentials behind it
- Enquire about one-to-one preparation - For candidates who want the gap closed rather than mapped. Places are limited and taken by application
- Books for admissions test preparation - The ESAT Move Register, a book of shortcuts for the ESAT, with a preview of its pages
The diagnostic and the practice questions linked above are free and stay free. One-to-one places are limited and taken by application, not by the hour.