Your STEP revision plan: from first module to results day

STEP runs on the opposite schedule to most admissions tests, and that single fact shapes the whole plan. You do not sit it before applying. Cambridge states plainly that you will be asked to sit STEP as part of your offer conditions, and gives a worked example: apply in October 2026, sit STEP in June 2027. OCR's guidance matches from the other side: STEP is usually sat in the same calendar year as admission.

Here is the 2026 series laid end to end. The 2027 dates have not been published, so read this as the shape of the year rather than a fixed annual pattern:

Two conclusions follow. First, the pressured stretch runs from the moment your offer arrives to early June: roughly four to five months for most people. Second, the official preparation resources assume you started far earlier than that, which is where the next section picks up. Worth knowing too: STEP is open to all, so you can enter even if your offer carries no STEP condition.

The most important resource in any STEP plan costs nothing. The STEP Support Programme is developed by the Faculty of Mathematics at Cambridge to help university applicants develop advanced problem-solving skills and prepare for STEP. It consists of online modules for individual study, with hints and full solutions, and it is free and open to everyone.

What makes it the backbone of a revision plan is that it carries an official timeline:

The timeline meshes with what each paper is based on. STEP 2 is based on A level Mathematics and AS level Further Mathematics, so a September start lets the modules build on foundations you are consolidating anyway. STEP 3 is based on A level Mathematics and the full A level Further Mathematics (the specification notes that the prescribed pure content comes with some modifications and additions, not a straight copy), so a January start lets the modules run alongside what you are still being taught. The message underneath is that the official designers assume well over a year of preparation: STEP rewards problem-solving stamina that has had time to grow, not a cramming sprint.

If you are in Year 12 now, the official timeline is already a ready-made plan; the job is simply to attach it to your school year.

Three execution points. The modules are designed for weekly study, so one or two steady slots beat a weekend binge of five. October is crowded with personal statements and other admissions tests, so bank some STEP 2 module progress in September before the squeeze. And once your offer arrives, shift the balance from modules to timed work. The reward for this route is that there is no sprint at the end: by June you have been living with this style of question for a year and a half.

The more common story: the offer lands in winter and serious preparation starts in January. The first thing to notice is that you are not actually behind on STEP 3, because the official recommendation is to start the STEP 3 modules in January anyway. What needs compressing is the Foundation and STEP 2 stages. Across four to five months, a workable split looks like this:

Two pieces of discipline hold the plan together. A levels cannot be parked: the Cambridge minimum offer level pairs AAA with grade 1 in both STEP 2 and STEP 3, so passing the paper while missing an A level grade still sinks the offer; interleave the two. And a fixed weekly review session is worth more than an extra paper. A sensible weekly rhythm: two module or topic sessions, one timed paper, one review session in which you rewrite what went wrong.

Past-paper work has an official anchor: Cambridge has written fully worked solutions to STEP 2 and STEP 3 papers from 2019 onwards, precisely so you can assess your progress when completing timed papers, which the programme recommends doing after the STEP 3 modules.

There is a second reason 2019 makes a natural cut-off. The formulae booklet was discontinued in 2019, so papers from then on match today's conditions: no booklet in the exam, with the formulae you are expected to know listed in the appendix to the specification. Earlier papers are still useful material, but they were sat under different rules. Note also that STEP 1 has not been offered since the June 2021 sitting; the STEP 1 papers you will find online belong to a discontinued paper, so they should not form the spine of your plan. The targets are STEP 2 and STEP 3.

Review matters more than volume, and the marking rules dictate how to review. Markers reward genuine progress towards a complete solution; a correct answer earns full marks whatever the method; but marks may be lost if the examiner cannot follow your working. So the loop for each paper is: sit it in full against the clock; before opening the solutions, rewrite the questions that stalled; then compare with the official worked solutions line by line; finally classify each gap (missing knowledge, poor selection, unclear write-up) in an error log you revisit weekly.

The marking rules should set your training priorities directly. Every question is out of 20. Everything you attempt is marked, and your grade is based on the six questions you answered best, with no restriction on how many you attempt from any section. Officially, attempting more than six is not advised, and there is no bonus for completing a question. Note that this is not a pick-six-first format: every attempt counts, and the best six are selected at marking time.

Boundaries are published every year. For the 2026 series (each paper out of 120):

In 2026, 28.14% of STEP 2 candidates reached grade 1 or above, and 35.73% did on STEP 3. Translate 62 out of 120 into exam behaviour: roughly three fully finished questions plus one substantial partial attempt reaches grade 1, and even an S is a little over four complete questions. Boundaries are set with reference to the intake of the universities that use STEP (Cambridge, Warwick and Imperial) and move year on year, so treat the table as calibration rather than a promise.

Three training conclusions follow. Each paper has eight pure questions, two mechanics and two probability/statistics, and your best six can all come from one section, so depth in pure mathematics is the safest base. Rehearse the opening scan: ten to fifteen minutes reading the paper and choosing where to commit. And practise walking away: a half-solved question still banks marks, so switching when genuinely stalled costs less than it feels.

Registration has one hard rule: you cannot enter yourself. To take STEP you must be registered at an authorised test centre, which makes the entry on your behalf. For the 2026 series the window opened on 1 March and closed on 4 May. Fees are per paper: £102.50 at UK centres, and £142.25 (or $179.75 / €166) outside the UK. Some centres add an administration fee on top, covering invigilation, despatch and room hire, so ask your centre what the real total is.

In practice: if you are at a UK school, speak to your exams officer early and confirm the school can enter you. If you are an international candidate, in mainland China or anywhere else, locate an authorised centre well before the window opens; centres run their own internal deadlines and charges. The sensible move is to sort the centre as soon as your offer arrives, in parallel with the studying, not after it.

Two cautions for planners. The 2027 dates have not been published, and OCR reserves the right to change dates and fees, so always work from the official key-dates page for your own year. And STEP is usually sat in the same calendar year as admission: entry in autumn 2027 means the June 2027 sitting.

The two papers are not sat on the same day. In 2026, STEP 2 fell on 4 June and STEP 3 on 10 June, six days later; in the UK the papers start at 9am, while international centres set their own local times. Plan the gap deliberately: take a day to reset after STEP 2, then run a focused STEP 3 week with one timed paper, a pass over the hardest STEP 3 module topics, and formula recall.

Your final fortnight of mocks must match the real conditions, because this is where STEP differs most from the computer-based tests you may have sat:

Presentation is itself a scoring matter: the specification requires solutions that are clear, logical and legible, with working fully set out and final answers simplified, and warns that marks may be lost if examiners cannot follow your working. Write every practice paper to the standard of a stranger reading it without effort, so nothing changes on the day.

Results arrive in mid-August: for the 2026 series, on 13 August by 08:00 UK time, with the grade boundaries published the same day, and grades passed to universities through UCAS. If you believe something has gone wrong with your mark, the last date for results enquiries in 2026 was 20 August, at £50.75 per paper.

Cambridge applicants get one further safety mechanism. Answer booklets are sent directly to the Cambridge admissions team (officially, copies of the booklets go straight to them), so that candidates who narrowly miss their offer can be judged on their actual mathematics rather than on the grade alone. That has a direct consequence for exam behaviour: even on a paper that is going badly, keep writing clear, complete mathematics for the questions you can do, because the booklet itself may be read page by page.

If the grade does fall short: the STEP grades required vary by College, so the terms of your own offer are what count. Holders of a flexible offer (eight Colleges are taking part for 2027 entry) have two routes to meet it by construction: AAA with grade 1 in both papers, or AAA* with grade 1 in either paper, with both papers still taken. Whatever the situation, the right move on results morning is to contact the College or university rather than deciding the outcome for them.