- When you get into an exam, quickly scan through the entire exam paper – make sure it is all there. If the exam goes onto the back of the last page, remember that it does.
- If you can’t do a question, don’t scribble out your rough working – even if it seems completely wrong.
- Don’t forget to put units in your answers if they are needed, such as ‘km’.
- Never spend too much time on one question – move on, there could be others you can answer easily.
- Be aware of whether your calculator is in the correct mode, for instance radians or degrees mode – a very common mistake.
- If you can do a problem, but can’t remember a crucial formula, make up one and use that instead – and tell the marker on your test what you have done. You might make up the formula for a circle’s area as
if you can’t remember what it is exactly. - When you can, draw a diagram with all the information given on it.
- Check the derivatives you find by using the approximate derivative method.
- Some teachers give questions that have ‘nice’ whole number answers – if yours does, check your decimal answers first when you are checking your test. The ‘nice’ number answers you already have are more likely to be correct (but only if this is the sort of thing your teacher has a habit of doing).
- Trial and error can be used when all else fails, and is sometimes the fastest method!
- If you can’t do a problem, then that is bad luck, but there is no way you can possibly do it if you don’t know your formulae – so learn them!
- Tests are usually done on a few topics at a time.
- When you first get into the test, write down all the formulae that you know on the back of the paper, so if you forget or blank out later in the test you can refer to them.
- Guesstimate an approximate answer to the question to see if your actual answer makes sense.
Sponsored Links
