If there’s one thing that ALWAYS causes students to lose marks during examinations, it would have to be careless mistakes. When we look through our child’s mathematics examination paper, it can be frustrating to see how many more marks he could have scored if he didn’t make those mistakes.
Here are some ways to help your child avoid giving his marks back to the teacher unnecessarily:
- Substitute final answer back into the original equation.
Other than checking the calculations, a faster way to check if the final answer is accurate is to substitute it back into the original equation. This method works for questions involving algebra, simultaneous equations and many others.
- Make sure the final answer makes sense.
If the question is asking for the fraction of the number of apples eaten, for example, having an answer that is above 1 will not make sense. It might be time to redo the question if the answer doesn’t make physical sense.
- Highlight important information in the question.
This is to ensure that the question won’t be interpreted wrongly and to avoid writing the wrong numbers. This careless mistake will most likely result in 0 marks, which is one of the most painful mistakes one can make.
- Don’t skip too many steps at one time.
Students tend to be over-confident sometimes and attempt to skip many steps to save time. However, mental calculations can be inaccurate and result in a loss of marks. Skipping steps also means that the teacher cannot give any method marks, should the final answer be wrong.
- Check every page and attempt every question.
It’s not uncommon to miss out the last page of the examination paper or forget to return to the questions skipped previously. Remember to check that every question of the paper has been attempted!
- Write neatly.
One might think that we would be able to read our own handwriting well, but sometimes, you never know. One common mistake is reading the letter ‘Z’ as a ‘2’. Here’s how to avoid this mistake:
- Check that you have used the right units.
A common mistake is converting units, for example from ‘km’ to ‘m’, and forgetting to convert back to what the question asks for (e.g. Express your answer in kilometres.). Always pay attention to the units to avoid this.
- Don’t make presentation errors.
Factually incorrect statements such as ‘1/2 = 1m’ or ‘1/3 = 4’ will be penalised. The proper way of presenting these equations should be ‘1/2 of distance = 1m’ or ‘1/3 of total apples = 4’.
- Pen down the workings.
Even if you are unsure, do not leave the entire space blank. Pen down some workings, and you might get additional marks.
- Manage your time well.
There is a limited time given to complete the paper, and yes, it is mandatory to work fast in order to finish it in time. However, it is equally crucial to make sure the answers are accurate. Do not spend too much time on a single question. Set a time limit and move on if you are still unable to solve it. Go back to the same question once you are done with the rest and, maybe, you might figure out something.
Share these tips with your child and he will be on his way to an even better grade for mathematics!
