How To Stop Making Silly Mistakes On Math Exams

Raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimized by silly mistakes on your math (or any) exams. You can’t see me, but i’m raising my hands pretty high right now. The thing that makes silly mistakes really upsetting is the fact that you actually knew what you were doing. It wasn’t one of those problems you go into hoping for the best.

Did you add instead of subtract? Or maybe you wrote down a positive number when it was supposed to be a negative number? Whatever it is, we’ve all been through those stupid mistakes that just makes you want to pull your hair out.

One time i multiplied 6*4 and got 32 (*insert skull imoji here*). To this day, i don’t understand what i was thinking. I’ve convinced myself i was probably possessed then. This is what silly mistakes are all about. You just don’t understand how you could have made such mistakes.

In my experience, the best way to combat these oversights is to learn from them. Your silly mistakes become stupid when you brush them off as one time faux pas. If you don’t do anything to minimize the likelihood of you repeating such errors, i can almost guarantee you’ll experience many more “faux pas” in future exams. Again, speaking from experience here.

Luckily, I am more than happy to share a couple things i have been doing, which have enormously helped me prevent more of those silly mistakes.

Figure out the cause

Okay, so if you’re reading this, you’ve recognized that there’s a problem. That’s a good start. Now we have to find the root of said problem. So, what’s going on?

Are you daydreaming for half the duration of the exam? Are your nerves throwing you off? Do you not go back and check your work?

Are these mistakes happening at the beginning, halfway or towards the end of problems? For me, i noticed my mistakes were more often condensed towards the end of problems. It was kind of like those running races where the runner in the lead let’s his guard down once they gets close to the finish line, only for a runner behind them to cross the line at the last second. YIKES.

That’s exactly how my mistakes played out. Once i saw shining light at the end of the tunnel, i fell off the wagon and got the entire question wrong.

Do not brush them off as one time mistakes. I can almost guarantee you’ll make those mistakes again.

Make sure you give your answer in the form asked

You may be asked to give your answer as a fraction,  in decimal form and rounded to a certain number, and more. Make sure you check if your professor specified how they want the answer. Unless you weren’t given any instructions on how your answer should appear, then you can have it in an appropriate form that suits you.

There is no reason to get into a situation where you have the right answer but not in the right format. This has happened to me, and my professor could not care less whether or not i had the right answer. It wasn’t in the correct format and therefore it was wrong. Simple as that.

Read the questions carefully

Just last week i missed a question i totally knew the answer of, all because i read the question too fast and interpreted it wrong. Here's how to fix that:

• Read the question multiple times: When reading the question, make sure you read it at least twice. If you don’t understand what you’re being asked to do, chances are you will not get the question right.

• Read the entire question: Read the question in its entirety, especially when it has multiple parts. I can’t count how many times i only worked the first part of a problem and forgot to work out the remaining parts.

Write Neatly

Sometimes you know exactly how to solve a problem but you’re not very organized. How does your exam paper usually look like when you’re about to hand it in? Is your paper clear enough for a random person to follow through the steps you used to solve any of the problems? What’s the state of your scratch paper at the end of an exam? Can the next person discern which problem is which or is everything all mumbo jumbo together?

Organizing your work neatly will greatly minimize your chances of making careless mistakes.

Try to stay calm

Nerves will literally lead you to fail an exam you would have otherwise done well on.

• Take deep breaths: Before starting your exam, close your eyes, take a couple deep breaths and remind yourself you’ve prepared well and will demonstrate it on the exam.
• Stay focus on your work: Don’t worry about what the person next to you is doing. Don’t get distracted by what may be happening outside of class. Anything can really be a distraction, it’s on you not to let distractions break your concentration.
• Get a good night sleep: I know this is foreign to most college students but it’s time to get acquainted with it. Coffee will never beat the benefits a good night rest brings.

Don’t do it in your head!

This is the one thing my math professor always yells at us about. Now, every time i try to do a problem mentally i can literally hear him say “write it down, don’t do it in your head!”

It doesn’t matter how simple you think a problem is, it’s always best to write it down in order to have a visual look of your work. This way you’re more likely to catch some of those *silly* mistakes we often make.

We surely don’t want you to get a question wrong, not because you didn’t know how to solve it, but because you wrote 4*4=8. Is it me or these types of mistakes always happen on questions worth the most points? This is literally how i felt when looking at my mistakes.

Don’t worry about your neighbors

Oh, your neighbor finished his/her test in 10 minutes? Who cares! Half the class already turned in their exams? Who CARES! You’re the only one still working on the exam? wHo CaReS! As long as time hasn’t run out, make sure to focus your attention on your paper and not what others are doing.

Do not rush yourself just because everyone seems to be done with their exam and you’re the only still working. It’s not a race. No one is getting extra points for finishing earlier than everyone else or vice versa. Pace yourself.

Double Check your work

I can’t even count how many times this has hurt me. I used to NEVER check over my work. Once i finished with a problem, i did not care to go back to it. Let’s just say, that method didn’t go too well for me.

Here’s what’s working for me now:

• Work problems twice: If there’s enough time, you should always repeat your calculations. Your brain can play some tricks on you, especially if you’re doing your calculations mentally. Everytime i go back to check my work, i always catch one or two mistakes that would have cost me.
• Use different methods: When checking your work, don’t just redo the problems the same way you did it the first time. If possible, try to solve the problems a different way, then compare both answers. You have a greater chance of being right if both answers match.
• Plug it in: The good thing about math is that you can often check your answer to see if you’re right. You can’t really do this with other subjects. Maybe you could with science but not subjects like history, english or psychology. For example, if you’re solving for “x”, once you find “x”you can plug it back into the original equation and see if it works out.

I can’t absolutely guarantee following these steps will forever immune you to making hair pulling mistakes on your exams. I know it didn’t do that for me because i still make these mistakes once in awhile. What i can guarantee is, you won’t make such mistakes as often.

All the best on your next math exams!

-Yvanne

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