Need some advice on exam technique

[mycatunderstandsme]

My DD is in year 9 and in her last 2 maths tests at school has not performed to the best of her ability-achieving around 55% both times.

She understands all the work and says she found the exams ok at the time but when she gets her marks back realises she has made a great many silly mistakes which if added together would increase her mark to around 70-75%!

She has a careless nature and revision time is leading to a lot of battles at home but I find it hard to see her not achieving her potential.She seems unwilling to learn from her mistakes and after the exam she just wants to forget about it but it seems the same mistakes are being repeated in the next one.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Aim to finish the exam 10 minutes before the end and reread the paper, and correct mistakes.

Read the questions carefully!

Thanks scary she did say she ran out of time
but she doesn't seem to pick up the mistakes even when she does have time.

I know she doesn't read the questions properly and have told her again and again. Unfortunately this is affecting her results in other subjects but she just won't listen.

We could get a tutor for her but I feel that at 14 she needs to take responsibility for herself-she is not really struggling.

could you be putting too much pressure on her and making her panic in the exam? Just an idea. I know part of the reason I did well in exams was because I felt relaxed going into them as my parents never nagged me to revise or put pressure on me to get a certain mark. Friends who were under pressure from parents/ themselves were more likely to panic and make silly mistakes/ not read the question properly.

I find I have to teach my undergraduates exam technique so not surprising if a 14yo is struggling really. One thing they still have to be told (and this surprises me) is to work out how long they can afford on each question, relative to how many marks they stand to gain from it.

Tiredfeet-I think you could be right.I have been nagging her to revise and she knows I want her to do well. I do feel that it is an important time at school now and these exams are to set them for GCSE so I did tell her it was important to do well. Fortunately she doesn't seem to think she has done much worse than most in her class so probably will stay in the set she is in.

Cory she started GCSE work in maths this year and has been using just her classwork and a revision book to revise but I think I will find out the exam board and get some past papers so she can practice timing and leave her to it.

I feel a bit guilty now-I'm sure I do stress her out. Thanks for all the advice.

My DD always used to panic in maths exams and never did as well as she could. Would start to run out of time and then panic which led to lots of silly mistakes like you have mentioned.

Have had a breakthrough this year by changing exam technique completely. Told her that we don't expect 100% (and never did) so there will be questions she might get wrong. This is NOT a problem. The secret is to leave the questions that you might get wrong (DD hates graphs, for example) until last so that if you run out of time you only miss the questions you may have got wrong anyway.

Result is that DD goes through the whole paper and does all the questions she knows she can do at the start when she is not panicking about running out of time. So she doesn't make silly mistakes (as she is calm) and she gets a good solid mark. Then as the end of the exam gets closer she tackles the harder questions. But now she knows there is no pressure on these (i.e. a good mark has probably already been achieved) they are more like a bonus and a bit of a challenge so she has actually got some quite tricky ones right simply because the pressure is off.

It may not work for everyone but she has gone from low Cs to high Bs and a couple of As in this year's in school tests with no other changes at all.

Maggotts I found exactly the same worked for my DD. Also just doing lots of practising and seeing where the same silly mistakes came up time and time again.

Hi
If you can, find out the exam board and go through the examiner's comments on past papers. This may help her to see that the process doesnt end with the exam. Also examiners comments show which are the obvious mistakes being made by everyone.

We just told our girls to do the best they can and read the questions carefully. DD2 now 20 used to get very panicky about exams, If we nagged her she just got worse, She is now at university and doing well, So try and relax a bit and just let her practise pass papers or even just reading questions,

I tell my students to leave any question they can't do immediately, then go back to it later. In the meantime, your brain will be retrieving things you thought you didn't know. It really works.

I think she may not really be understanding the underlying concepts. It may be that she thinks that she has got it right, and when it comes back she finds that she did it wrong. She probably then wants to forget about it. I would get her a tutor, because the tutor will spot where she is going wrong and will address it at the time, which will help her to learn it.

Check over with her the basic understandings of her calculations and the methods she uses to arrive at the answer. The trouble with answers to maths questions is that it is about accuracy, ie the final answer is either right or wrong. But, encourage her to write down her calculations and workings out in the margins, & it does not matter if it looks untidy to her.

In maths, the key exam technique is to 'show the working'.

If she does this, she will avoid silly mistakes, and even if she doesn't get the final answer, she will get some partial credit.