STEP preparation guide
Writing STEP Solutions: Turning Maths You Can Do into Marks You Get
STEP examiners never mark what you were thinking; they mark what you wrote. The official rules could not be clearer on this: progress towards a complete solution earns marks, a correct answer earns full marks whatever the method, and working the examiner cannot follow may lose marks even when the final answer is right. This guide covers one subject only: turning mathematics you can do into marks you actually receive. It works through the official marking rubric sentence by sentence, the hard rules of the answer booklet, how partial credit is earned, and how to practise solution writing as a discipline in its own right.
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STEP Marking at a Glance
- What actually gets marked
- The reasoning written in your booklet, never the maths in your head
- Partial credit
- Progress towards a complete solution earns marks, even when the final answer is wrong
- Method and completion
- Correct answers earn full marks whatever the method, and completing a question earns no bonus
- How the grade is formed
- Everything you attempt is marked, each question is out of 20, and your six best answers count
- On the day
- One 48-page booklet, no rough paper, and crossed-out work is not marked
All of the above comes from OCR's STEP scoring and results guidance, the STEP specification for examinations from June 2026, and the STEP test-specific instructions.
In short
- STEP marking rewards progress towards a complete solution, but working the examiner cannot follow may lose marks even with a correct final answer: the write-up is a skill in itself.
- You get one 48-page booklet and no rough paper: rough work goes inside and is crossed out, crossed-out work is unmarked unless labelled, and every written page needs its Question Answered circle filled in.
- Everything you attempt is marked and your six best answers count: a cleanly written half-question can still sit among your best six, with marks following your argument as far as it truly goes.
- Correct answers earn full marks whatever the method, and completing a question earns no bonus, so six solutions written properly always beat eight spread thin.
- Self-marking against the official worked solutions available from 2019 onwards, then rewriting your own script, is the most direct way to turn answer-getting into proof-writing.
I
Part 1 of 3
Sections 01 to 03
01
In STEP, the write-up itself earns the marks
In most examinations, writing is merely how you present a result. In STEP, the writing is the result. OCR's published marking guidance is unusually explicit: candidates are rewarded for making good progress towards a solution even where the final answer is wrong, and a correct answer receives full marks whatever the method used. The specification then adds the sentence every candidate should pin above their desk: solutions must be clear, logical and legible, with working fully set out, and marks may be lost if examiners are unable to follow the working, even where a correct final answer appears.
Progress pays
Rewarded on the way to a solution
Marks come even when the final answer is wrong
Method is free
A correct answer takes full marks
Any route counts, including one the examiners never anticipated
The presentation clause
Clear, logical and legible
Working fully set out, in the specification's own words
The cost of losing your reader
Marks may be lost
Read those two statements together and the conclusion is stark: what gets marked is not the mathematics in your head but the record of reasoning in your answer booklet, as understood by a stranger reading it cold. For a STEP candidate, solution writing is not a soft skill that polishes the real work; it sits alongside question selection and mathematical technique as a third, fully load-bearing skill, and unlike the other two it is almost never practised deliberately.
One further fact raises the stakes considerably. Copies of candidates' answer booklets are sent directly to the Cambridge admissions team, so that judgements about students who narrowly miss their offer can be made on the actual work rather than the bare mark or grade. Your handwriting, your structure and your logical chain may therefore be read a second time, after results day, by the very people deciding whether to take you.
02
The marking rubric, sentence by sentence
Every sentence OCR publishes about marking maps onto a decision you will make in the exam room, so it is worth taking them one at a time.
01Sentence 1
Everything you attempt is marked
Good progress towards a solution is rewarded even if the final answer is incorrect. STEP has genuine partial credit: a half-finished question is not worth nothing, and the marks follow you as far as your argument genuinely reaches.
02Sentence 2
Correct answers score full marks, whatever the method
The markers are not betting on one intended route. If you find an unorthodox path and it holds, it is worth the same twenty marks as the model solution.
03Sentence 3
There are no bonus marks for finishing
The markers adhere strictly to the mark scheme, twenty marks per question. Completion is not rewarded in itself; each verifiable step of progress is what carries the value.
04Sentence 4
Your six best answers form the grade
Each question is marked out of 20 and your grade rests on your six best answers; everything you write is marked, but OCR explicitly advises against attempting more than six questions.
05And finally
Unclear writing costs marks
The specification's presentation clause: standard notational conventions should be followed, final answers should be simplified, and marks may be lost where examiners cannot follow the working.
Put together, these five statements are the whole legal basis of solution writing in STEP: progress pays, method is free, completion earns no bonus, six answers count, and unclear writing costs.
03
The hard rules: one booklet, no rough paper
STEP is a pen-and-paper examination, and its paper rules are unlike almost any other exam a sixth-former will have sat. Each one changes how you should write.
Rough paper
None issued
Extra sheets are removed and not marked; rough working goes inside the booklet and is crossed out
The booklet
One booklet, 48 pages
Only work in the official answer booklet is marked
Crossed-out work
Not marked
Unless you clearly indicate that you want it marked
The Question Answered circle
Fill it in on every page you write on
A page that does not say which question it belongs to may not be marked
Pens and instruments
Black pen for answers, pencil for diagrams and graphs
Rulers, protractors and compasses are allowed
Graph paper
Not permitted
Any graph required is a sketch, drawn straight into the booklet
Calculators and formulae
Neither permitted nor required, and no formulae booklet
The formulae you are expected to know are listed in the specification's appendix
All of these rules point the same way: from the moment your pen touches the page, everything you write is part of the official record. Managing rough work and managing pages are themselves examinable skills, in the very real sense that doing them badly costs marks.
II
Part 2 of 3
Sections 04 to 06
04
From getting answers to writing proofs: three shifts
A level training optimises for reaching correct answers quickly; STEP marks a chain of reasoning that a stranger can verify. OCR describes the questions candidly: they test the ability to apply mathematical knowledge in novel and unfamiliar ways, often drawing on several specification topics at once, and solutions frequently require insight, ingenuity, persistence and the ability to work through substantial sequences of algebraic manipulation. Turning that kind of problem into a markable solution usually demands three distinct shifts in habit.
From getting answers to writing proofs
The three shifts a markable script demands
From calculating to justifyingEvery non-obvious step needs a stated reason, not just a result
- Steps you were allowed to skip at A level are, in STEP, marks left on the table
- The reward is attached to visible progress, not to the destination
From steps to structureA long solution needs a skeleton
- Say what you are about to do, then define your notation
- Advance in clearly separated stages, then close explicitly
- At any line, the marker knows exactly where they are in your argument
From private scratch work to public documentWritten for a tired examiner who has never met you
- Standard notation
- Simplified final answers
- Legible handwriting
Tap a branch to unfold
Those last three are not matters of personal style. Standard notation, simplified final answers and legible handwriting are all named explicitly in the specification; they are the typesetting conventions of the document you are writing.
05
Anatomy of a markable solution
Without quoting any particular question, high-scoring solutions share a remarkably consistent skeleton. The table below sets an answer-driven write-up against a markable one.
| Answer-driven habit | Markable habit | |
|---|---|---|
| Opening | Launch straight into computation | One sentence stating the strategy ("let..., we proceed by induction on...") |
| Notation | Variables appear from nowhere | Defined before first use, meaning fixed throughout |
| Reasoning | Jumps between lines done in the head | Every non-obvious step carries its justification |
| Cases | Only the "main" case written up | All cases listed explicitly and dealt with one by one |
| Closing | Stop when the result appears | State the conclusion, matching the wording asked for |
The closing row matters most on "show that" parts. There the target is printed on the paper, so every mark lives in the working: the final step must land exactly on the stated result, and any "clearly it follows" leap is a voluntary donation of marks back to the exam board.
The opposite discipline matters just as much: because the destination is known, your argument must genuinely flow from the given conditions to the conclusion, not be assembled backwards from the answer and dressed up as a derivation. Writing the logic in its true direction is both mathematically honest and, under a rubric that rewards progress the marker can follow, the only reliable way to collect what your work has already earned.
06
Partial credit: marks follow the argument as far as it truly goes
The official rules give partial credit a firm footing: everything you attempt is marked, and good progress towards a solution is rewarded. For a candidate, at least four practical conclusions follow.
Never abandon a stalled question in fragments
Before you move on, write up cleanly the part that genuinely stands: the reformulation of the given conditions, the intermediate results you have actually proved, the special cases you have verified. Those are marks that can be banked; an untidy half-attempt is not.
Label your break points honestly
"It remains to show X, which I have not done" is worth more than a bluffed ending, because it lets the marker see precisely how far your argument reaches, and pay you for exactly that distance.
Be slow to cross out
Crossed-out work is not marked unless you indicate otherwise, so until you have something strictly better, an imperfect argument beats an empty page.
A half-question can sit among your six best
Your grade rests on the best six, and in 2026 the grade 1 boundary on STEP 2 fell at 62 out of 120. As rough arithmetic, three questions done properly plus two or three attempts showing real, well-presented progress puts you in that region.
20 marks
Per question, marked strictly to the scheme
6 answers
Count towards the grade: your six best
62 / 120
The 2026 grade 1 boundary on STEP 2
Partial credit is not a consolation prize; for most candidates it is a structural component of the grade they end up with.
III
Part 3 of 3
Sections 07 to 09
07
How to do rough work when there is no rough paper
"No rough paper" sounds like a logistical footnote. In practice it reshapes how you work for the whole three hours, because every exploratory calculation happens inside the same booklet as your formal solutions.
01Tactic 1
Think before you ink
A minute or two of planning before writing, settling the strategy in your head, dramatically reduces the amount of doomed working that ends up on the page.
02Tactic 2
Give rough work its own territory
Confine exploration to the lower half of a page, or to a separate page, then cross it out tidily, rather than letting scratch work and fair copy tangle in the same paragraph.
03Tactic 3
Cross out neatly and reversibly
A single line through is enough; do not obliterate. If you later realise a crossed-out passage was actually right, you can still label it clearly as work you want assessed, and the rules allow for that.
04Tactic 4
Fill in the circle the moment you start a page
Make it a reflex rather than a chore you promise to batch at the end, when time pressure is at its worst.
05Tactic 5
Keep a page budget in mind
The booklet has 48 pages; across six main attempts, that is a known number of pages per question for fair copy and rough work combined, and knowing it stops you sprawling early on.
Practise under exactly these constraints at home: one set of pages, black pen, no calculator, rough work crossed out. Composure in the exam room is entirely a product of having rehearsed the format until it feels boring.
08
Practising the write-up as a discipline in its own right
Most candidates check their answers and move on. In STEP that is training the wrong muscle. The write-up needs its own practice loop, and the official materials for it already exist.
Free official material
The STEP Support Programme
Developed by the Cambridge Faculty of Mathematics, open to everyone, with online modules, hints and full solutions
Worked solutions
STEP 2 and STEP 3 papers from 2019 onwards
Fully worked official solutions exist for these papers, and they are what you self-mark against
When to start timed papers
After the STEP 3 modules
That is the order the Faculty itself recommends
01Step 1
Attempt one question in full, under time
Write an examination-standard solution rather than chasing the answer.
02Step 2
Compare paragraph by paragraph
Not just at the final line: which steps did you skip, which justifications did you omit, which cases did you miss?
03Step 3
Rewrite your own solution
The standard is simple: a classmate who has never seen the problem should be able to follow it in one reading. The rewrite is where most of the improvement happens, because it forces you to feel the gap between knowing an argument and expressing one.
04Step 4
Have someone play examiner
Where possible, a teacher or a peer marks only what is on the page, and you are not allowed to explain anything aloud. Every point at which you feel the urge to speak is a point where the real script would have bled marks.
Run that loop weekly and the change in your written style becomes visible within months. It is slower than doing three extra questions per session, and considerably more valuable.
09
Common ways write-ups lose marks: a pre-exam checklist
Every line in this checklist corresponds to an explicit risk in the official rules, and it is worth walking through it in the final week before the exam.
Skipped steps
Working the examiner cannot follow may lose marks even when the final answer is correct, so every non-obvious step belongs on the page.
Sloppy endings on "show that" parts
The target is printed in the question, so all the credit is in the working; the last line must land exactly on the stated result.
Drifting notation
The specification asks for standard notational conventions; a symbol that quietly changes meaning halfway through a solution is among the hardest things for a marker to follow.
Unsimplified final answers
The specification says plainly that final answers should be simplified.
Missing Question Answered circles
A written page without its circle filled in may simply not be marked.
Careless crossing out, or careless keeping
Crossed-out work is unmarked unless you indicate otherwise; and if two attempts at a question both survive on the page, say clearly which one you are submitting rather than leaving the choice to the marker.
The wrong pen
Answers in black pen only, diagrams and graphs in pencil; nothing else is in the rules.
Attached extra paper
Anything you attach is removed and not marked, so a loose sheet is never a rescue plan.
Minutes are expensive in a three-hour paper, but nothing on this list costs more than seconds. These habits defend precisely the marks you can least afford to lose: the ones your mathematics has already earned and only tidy writing can bank.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Do you get rough paper in STEP? Where does rough work go?
No. Candidates are not given any extra paper, and any sheets attached to the booklet are removed and not marked. All rough working goes inside the official answer booklet and is then crossed out; you get a single booklet of 48 pages, so it is worth rehearsing this format in practice.
Is crossed-out work marked in STEP?
No, unless you clearly indicate that you want it marked. So cross out with care: until you have a strictly better version, keep an imperfect argument on the page; and if you realise something you crossed out was right after all, you can label it and ask for it to be marked.
Can you lose marks in STEP if the answer is right but the working is messy?
Yes. The specification states that solutions must be clear, logical and legible with working fully set out, and that marks may be lost if examiners are unable to follow the working, even where a correct final answer appears. It also asks for standard notation and simplified final answers.
How much is half a STEP question worth?
There is no fixed tariff, but partial credit is real: everything you attempt is marked and good progress towards a solution is rewarded. Write up cleanly what you have genuinely established and label the break point; a well-presented half-question can still count among the six best answers that form your grade.
Do you have to use the intended method in STEP?
No. The official position is that correct answers always receive full marks, whatever the method used. Marking follows a strict 20-mark scheme per question with no bonus for completeness; what matters is that each step of your route is on the page and verifiable.
What equipment is allowed in STEP? Calculators? Graph paper?
Rulers, protractors and compasses are allowed; answers are written in black pen and diagrams in pencil. Calculators are neither permitted nor required, no formulae booklet is issued (the formulae expected are listed in the specification's appendix), and graph paper is not permitted: all graphs are sketches drawn in the booklet.
Does Cambridge actually see your STEP script?
Yes. Copies of candidates' answer booklets are sent directly to the Cambridge admissions team, so that students who narrowly miss their offer can be judged on their actual work rather than on the bare mark or grade. One more very concrete reason to write your solutions well.
MORE GUIDES
Other STEP preparation guides
- Your STEP revision plan: from first module to results day
- The STEP Support Programme: How to Use It, and What It Leaves Out
- STEP 2: Format, Marking, Grade Boundaries and Preparation
- STEP 3: What It Tests, How Hard It Is, and How to Prepare
- STEP Section A pure mathematics: the eight questions that decide your grade
- STEP Mechanics: The Strategic Case for Section B
- STEP Probability and Statistics: How to Play Section C
- STEP question selection: finding your best six out of twelve
- STEP grades and grade boundaries: from raw marks to offer conditions
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