How to stop making silly mistakes

I literally know 99% of things and how to do them in maths, as well as how to work out questions, however i genuinley every maths exam lose up to 30 marks in silly errors that could be easily mitigated. In exams i could easily get high 70's

As I don't have extra time and its too late to make arrangements, its very difficult for me to check as i finish late in maths exams all the time.

What do I do?

Reply 1

cabbagemm

-Go through the papers and exam questions that you have done and find out exactly which "silly mistakes" you have made. Make a list of these mistakes somewhere and go over each one and make sure you recognise the mistakes you make multiple times. It can be helpful to link certain mistakes to certain topics if you only make them when answering questions on a specific topic. If you are aware of something that you regularly mess up on then you are likely to remember to be careful when answering questions on that topic. Maybe pin a list of these mistakes on your wall or put it in your planner. put it somewhere you will see it often and make sure you look at it before beginning a pack of exam questions.
-Another useful thing would be to make sure you are concentrating fully when doing exam questions , especially if they are on topics you find easy. Instead of trying to get questions done as quick as possible, make sure that you read each question properly!!!!! take the time to read it through and know exactly what you need to calculate. Underline or highlight or whatever you find works best for you. If you have a habit of just running through exam questions as quick as possible without really reading the question then definitely try to break out of that. Obviously being quick is necessary in an exam situation but being careless by not properly reading questions can cost you a lot of marks(the amount of marks lost by carelessness could be larger than the marks gained by doing more of the exam paper quickly!
-Also, make sure that the things that you brush off as "silly mistakes" are not gaps in your knowledge! this might seem silly but sometimes you brush things off as unimportant because it seems easy but actually you are remembering something wrong or you don't understand the concept fully.
-As for time management for maths exams, I would recommend checking answers with a calculator after you finish each question(while it is fresh in your mind), if possible (this may only be possible for some questions but make sure to take full advantage of calculator if you can!!). Also complete some exam questions for topics that you find particularly challenging and making a note of the time taken and the number of marks in total of the questions. aim for around 1 minute per mark. then if you notice that you spend too long on specific topics, practise them more to improve your speed.
Hope this helps!!