STEP 2016: Grade Boundaries, Papers and Practice

In 2016 STEP still ran in its original three-paper format: STEP 1 (paper code 9465), STEP 2 (9470) and STEP 3 (9475) were all sat that year. Each paper was a 3-hour written exam of 13 questions: 8 in pure mathematics, 3 in mechanics and 2 in probability and statistics. Candidates chose freely which questions to attempt, and only their best 6 answers counted towards the total. A formula booklet was still provided in 2016; it disappeared with the 2019 reform, and from 2021 STEP 1 was discontinued altogether, which makes 2016 one of the years with the full three-paper experience.

The official grade boundaries were as follows (each paper is out of 120; source: the official STEP 2016 Explanation of Results):

Note that the S boundary on STEP 1 stood at 102, the highest of the three papers that year, while the S boundary on STEP 3 was 88. Each paper is graded on its own scale, so boundaries cannot be converted between papers.

STEP results fall into five grades: S (Outstanding), 1 (Very Good), 2 (Good) and 3 (Satisfactory), with U (Unclassified) below the grade 3 boundary. The marking rules have stayed the same for years: each question is worth 20 marks, candidates may attempt any of the 13 questions, only the best 6 answers count, and the paper total is 120. A fully correct answer earns full marks whatever method is used.

Reading the 2016 table, the S grade required 102 on STEP 1 but 88 on STEP 3. That does not mean an S was easier to get on STEP 3; it means each paper is graded separately against that year's question difficulty and cohort performance. For the same reason, boundaries move from year to year: they are re-published annually in the official Explanation of Results, and there is no fixed boundary that carries across years.

As for which grade is "enough": Cambridge offer conditions vary by college and by year, so the wording of the offer itself is the only reliable reference. Treat boundaries as a way to understand difficulty, not as a fixed target imported from any single year.

The statistics below are based on the STEP 2016 questions in FrontierVue's bank. They reflect the platform's own tagging, not an official analysis of the papers.

FrontierVue holds all 13 questions from each of the three 2016 papers, matching the official structure of the era: 8 pure mathematics, 3 mechanics and 2 probability and statistics questions per paper. By difficulty tag, STEP 1 splits into 6 medium and 7 hard questions, while STEP 2 and STEP 3 each carry 4 medium and 9 hard questions, so the two later papers are noticeably tougher, consistent with their reliance on Further Mathematics content.

By topic tag, pure mathematics dominates the year's collected questions with 24, followed by mechanics with 9. Among the finer tags, induction and recursion, probability, and integration techniques appear 6 times each, coordinate geometry 5 times and differential equations 4 times. If you plan to work through the full 2016 set, it pays to be fluent in integration techniques and induction first, then move on to the mechanics and statistics options.

Open the STEP past paper library and locate the 2016 sittings of STEP 1, STEP 2 and STEP 3. Each paper can be taken in a timed interface with question-by-question analysis afterwards, and every question comes with a full worked solution. FrontierVue currently holds 111 STEP papers (1987 to 2025) with 1,532 questions in total; the latest two papers in each subject are free to try.

The guides pair well with the papers: the STEP 2 guide and STEP 3 guide cover what each paper demands and how to pace preparation; writing good solutions and choosing questions in the exam address the two habits that decide most marks; and the grades and boundaries guide puts boundaries across the years into one picture. The resource library also carries the official OCR specification and STEP Support Programme materials.