How To Do Your Practice Exams

What is the best way to do Practice Maths exams? Work through questions as fast as you can – or take your time?

Your teacher may encourage you to practice doing questions at exam pace which is much faster than they would be done for homework. The reasoning behind this is that you are getting used to “exam pace”. Is this the best way for you to prepare for your exams?

I don’t believe so. By working through questions at a fast pace you’re more likely to make mistakes. And you don’t want to be practicing making mistakes. You really want to be practicing how you want to do the questions in your exam: Getting them correct.

So you need to practice the questions in the lead up to your exams at a pace where you understand what you are doing and making as FEW mistakes as possible along the way.

Whatever you practice you will get better at. If you practice steady and consistent problem solving skills and you are getting the answers correct then you will be getting better at doing just that.

Perfect Practice Makes Perfect

The best way of doing this is to take your time and carefully think your way through your solution while you’re doing the steps correctly.

As you do more questions you’ll find that your speed will pick up anyway. You’ll know the steps you need to use because you’ve practiced them successfully in previous questions.

The other advantage of a slow and steady approach is that it help you get a better understanding of how to solve each type of question. And that is what you really need to be able to do with the questions in your exams – solve them. Not just do them quickly.

It is not possible to successfully answer Maths questions if the understanding is not there. And the best way for you to get that understanding is to take your time and MAKE SURE you can do the problems.

On the day of the exam you will have nervous energy and you will be able to work at your normal exam pace. You will be able to think of how to solve most of the questions. You will know the step by step methods you need to use because you practiced them for the last few weeks before your exams.

You’ll have done your best to be prepared.