Hey, I hope you are well, I was just wondering if you guys could give me some tips to make my working out neat and concise in math exams. In my task 1's, my working out was all over the place with questions scattered in a random order across three different writing booklets and sometimes mislabelling questions. My math teacher was nice enough to spend hours trying to mark my paper and I know that my HSC marker wont be anywhere near that gracious to me. my problem is in the heat of the exam i just write and write and a lot of the time it doesn't make sense to the teachers because the working out is everywhere and this even worse considering how bad my handwriting is. This also makes me more likely to make stupid and avoidable mistakes. Any tips would be appreciated. thanks in advanced
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Ext 2 andExt 1 in exam working out tips (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter MAK03
- Start date
Perhaps this is an issue that you can gradually address through practice. I would suggest doing the following while completing past exam papers:
I hope this helps!
- Set and adhere to a time limit that matches the time limit specified by each paper that you are attempting.
- Use similar (or, if possible, the same) material that your school provides you with when sitting Mathematics Extension 1 and Mathematics Extension 2 exams. In the case of different writing booklets required to answer different questions, you should try using different papers/booklets accordingly.
I hope this helps!
Are you working linearly through the paper (generally)?
I assume that you have to use a different writing booklet for each question, if your exams are structured like that. If you don't have to, then I would strongly suggest doing so anyway if they are long, multi-part questions, or at least always starting a new page for each question. Number your booklets too.
Before starting any question write down the question number. If you don't know how to answer a question on first go, or don't complete your working and come back to it later, do your best to leave about as much space as you think you will need to complete the question.
If you do end up needing more space don't just add it on to the end of a writing booklet. Using a new writing booklet, write something like Q6 c) ii) cont. and then continue your working for the question. Also write cont on booklet N on your original booklet at the end of your working in that booklet.
Of course practice this as youre practicing papers normally as Jimmy said. Take a short amount of time (few seconds) before starting each question to make sure that you have labelled the question and the question is being treated as a discrete unit.
I assume that you have to use a different writing booklet for each question, if your exams are structured like that. If you don't have to, then I would strongly suggest doing so anyway if they are long, multi-part questions, or at least always starting a new page for each question. Number your booklets too.
Before starting any question write down the question number. If you don't know how to answer a question on first go, or don't complete your working and come back to it later, do your best to leave about as much space as you think you will need to complete the question.
If you do end up needing more space don't just add it on to the end of a writing booklet. Using a new writing booklet, write something like Q6 c) ii) cont. and then continue your working for the question. Also write cont on booklet N on your original booklet at the end of your working in that booklet.
Of course practice this as youre practicing papers normally as Jimmy said. Take a short amount of time (few seconds) before starting each question to make sure that you have labelled the question and the question is being treated as a discrete unit.
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To add on from this, make sure you yourself are able to follow on and understand how you completed every line of working.
If you don't understand how you went from one line to the next, or your work is messy, chances are your teacher won't understand it either.
If you don't understand how you went from one line to the next, or your work is messy, chances are your teacher won't understand it either.
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A slightly related tip is always look before you leap. What I mean by that is don't just blindly plunge into scribbling an answer to a question without a plan. STOP and mentally formulate your solution/strategy to solve the problem (i.e. I will do A, which should give me B that I can then use to find C). Try to think ahead. Will your solution work or fail?
There will be times when you have an initial idea but when you walk through it mentally you then realise it doesn't work. Once you are reasonably confident your solution might work in your head (or if it is only thing you could come up with) only then write it out. This should force you to only write what is relevant with some structure (rather than a brain dump) and helps you be more efficient in the exam (i.e. less time wasted physically writing solutions that don't work).
There will be times when you have an initial idea but when you walk through it mentally you then realise it doesn't work. Once you are reasonably confident your solution might work in your head (or if it is only thing you could come up with) only then write it out. This should force you to only write what is relevant with some structure (rather than a brain dump) and helps you be more efficient in the exam (i.e. less time wasted physically writing solutions that don't work).