One thing many of our maths tutors observe is that some students make mistakes although they actually know how to arrive at the correct answer. Although our maths tutors constantly remind students to check their answers before submitting them, we can’t be doing this during the exams. Here are 3 common careless mistakes observed by our maths teachers:
1. Degrees and radians
Some of our maths students have previously lost marks because they have failed to change the settings on their calculator from degrees to radians or vice versa. This is a simple yet costly mistake. When encountering a trigonometry question, students should always check which unit the question requires. Our maths tutors always advise studnets to read carefully and not rush through the questions, just in case they miss out on this important detail and lose marks unnecessarily.
2. Error carried forward
Good students will remember to check their working every step of the way. Often, questions for maths involve multiple steps, a single error can mess up your answer at the end. A careful student would ensure that the figures are correct after each step, to avoid error carried forward to the end. Although there are still some marks allocated for errors carried forward, students would still be penalised. This is a common mistake preventing students from getting the best grades they can.
3. Misreading the question
Our maths tutors often remind students to be careful not to read the question too quickly in case they make mistakes. Often, when students prepare with past year questions which ask for a certain solution, they train themselves only for that particular format of question. MOE constantly makes slight changes in questions types each year, which are “traps” set by the examiner to ensure that the student does not blindly follow the past year questions and memorise a singular way to get the answer. Students should read carefully for what the questions are asking, and then thoughfully present a solution according to their training. This approach will ultimately enable students to score the highest marks.
