Silly Mistakes (1 Viewer)

timeflies

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How do you get rid of them? No seriously, in my first assessments, I lost quite a few marks to the stupidest mistakes possible. Not really for sciences and english, since its mostly learnt content, but for mathematics exams where you have to do working out. I am the king of sillies. Pretty sure I could have came first on both my 2U and 4U exams if it weren't for making really dumb mistakes like not expanding a bracket out properly >< (Yes I'm that stupid!) I feel like kicking myself when I see the mistakes I made, they are soo amateur and they are really costing me. Is there any way to minimise these mistakes? Anybody else out there like me? :p Advice?

PS. Good luck to all you 2013ers with results coming tomorrow! :D
 
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IcyRain

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We all get nervous when we know we are sitting an exam, and we are all prone to make silly mistakes. But the best way to eradicate these errors is to practice as hawkrider said, but also to go through the exam questions carefully and imagine that it is just another exercise from your maths textbook.

Just for the record I can't go into an exam without making stupid mistakes such as, miscalculating, over thinking, or just not reading the question correctly. It is so annoying. :p
 

strawberrye

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I know that feeling-getting your exam results-and realising you lost your marks all due to silly mistakes, they are the worst mistakes ever-I would rather the mistakes I have make is genuinely on the things I don't understand or know rather than from being careless. I think the best tip is when you are doing practice exams under test conditions, you should mark your answers and any silly mistakes you have made-RECORD THEM DOWN in a book. I think if when you revise for a test, you look over the notes that warns you not to make those silly mistakes again, you will be more careful in the actual exam. Another tip is to not panic, take a deep breath and go in there and re-read every part of your working out immediately after you finished the question, I think it is by practice-doing questions quickly, accurately, you will allow more time to check over your answers and correct any 'silly mistakes.

There's still some opportunities left for you to redeem yourself. Just make sure you don't panic too much and read everything carefully and logically. Don't blame yourself too much-it is over and you can't change the test results. Hope this helps and best wishes for your HSC:)
 

QZP

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I recently got full marks in my exam, so I can offer my perspective on the matter. Leading up to the exam, I made my mind 'quiet'. I transitioned into light revision and concentrated on relaxing by playing sports and music. If you stress and try to cram in extra study sessions, your creative thinking will suffer on the day as it is narrowed down to what you revised the previous days. Live a normal life - "You will get what you deserve" is what I constantly told myself. If you can get to that 'zone' where your mind is quiet and you aren't stressing, you will make fewer mistakes.
 
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Zeref

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I recently got full marks in my exam, so I can offer my perspective on the matter. Leading up to the exam, I made my mind 'quiet'. I transitioned into light revision and concentrated on relaxing by playing sports and music. If you stress and try to cram in extra study sessions, your creative thinking will suffer on the day as it is narrowed down to what you revised the previous days. Live a normal life - "You will get what you deserve" is what I constantly told myself. If you can get to that 'zone' where your mind is quiet and you aren't stressing, you will make fewer mistakes.
could you elaborate abit more on "light revision" the day before the test? e.g. what your day consisted of?
 

pHyRe

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practice and make sure you don't make the same mistake twice.

one mistake i think i made in my hsc was not going through papers thoroughly enough. do the paper really carefully and go through all your mistakes properly, you could probably make a little checklist or something over the year of errors that come up more than once.

also for 4u, think to yourself HOW to think of the answer in the exam. it's about pattern recognition, so see how you might have seen it in an exam as oposed to just going "oh right. that's what you do. nextt"
 

QZP

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could you elaborate abit more on "light revision" the day before the test? e.g. what your day consisted of?
Sure :) I still felt somewhat unprepared 1-2 days before the exam due to nerves, angst, etc. Light revision (stimulation) for me was just looking at questions from past papers and mentally mapping out how I would reach the answer. Some intriguing questions here and there I would do, but nothing under exam conditions which I had done the week before. E.g. If my dog wanted to play with me or something, I wouldn't be like noonono not now studying for ze exam. I think it's really important to live a normal life and eradicate the tension you feel leading up to an exam.
 
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timeflies

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I recently got full marks in my exam, so I can offer my perspective on the matter. Leading up to the exam, I made my mind 'quiet'. I transitioned into light revision and concentrated on relaxing by playing sports and music. If you stress and try to cram in extra study sessions, your creative thinking will suffer on the day as it is narrowed down to what you revised the previous days. Live a normal life - "You will get what you deserve" is what I constantly told myself. If you can get to that 'zone' where your mind is quiet and you aren't stressing, you will make fewer mistakes.
This is actually not bad advice. I always hardcore study the night before an exam. Maybe I should study beforehand and relax more the closer I am to the exam!
 

Zeref

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Sure :) I still felt somewhat unprepared 1-2 days before the exam due to nerves, angst, etc. Light revision (stimulation) for me was just looking at questions from past papers and mentally mapping out how I would reach the answer. Some intriguing questions here and there I would do, but nothing under exam conditions which I had done the week before. E.g. If my dog wanted to play with me or something, I wouldn't be like noonono not now studying for ze exam. I think it's really important to live a normal life and eradicate the tension you feel leading up to an exam.
i seeee, thanks :D
 

sleepyair

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Do past papers under exam conditions and mark afterwards.

Rinse and repeat :)
 

dinomyte

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Try record the silly mistakes that you do into a note. Read through them before you do practice papers. That way you can be more aware of what you have to watch out for while you are doing the test.

Sometimes silly mistakes arise from absent-mindedness. Pay lots of attention to detail. For questions where you solve for x, try to put the x value back into the original equation and see if it works. I have problems with fractions and grouping together like terms so I always need to use the calculator, even when I need help in sums like -1+7-2+3.
 

Squar3root

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One word: Practice
pretty much.

when i was doing exams at the start of the year, i was very time conscience about time and trying to finish the entire exam. I did finish the exam but when i got it back, i would loose 5-10 marks just because i missed a negative, or something silly. Later in the year i "didn't give a [black accent] dayum about finish the exam, and i used that extra time to look over my work, but didnt finish my exams in the allocated time. in the end though, i would loose maybe 1-2 marks on silly mistake and 3ish marks for not attempting the last question but it beats losing 10 marks
 

rumbleroar

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Silly mistakes can often occur if you rush through your paper and over stress, so you're not doing things properly. It's happened so many times to me that I literally need to tell myself to calm down when I'm doing assessments lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Fawun

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um in my maths assessment i wrote 10x = -5 to equal to -2 instead of -1/2 because of time lol like i legit had 10 minutes to do 4 questions and i was already thinking ahead to the next question ahaha

dont do what i did lol
 

Randox

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From my experience you can't... :( Lost at least a whole atar point from them.
 

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