Exam Tips for H2 Mathematics
The following tips are a summary aimed at helping you maximise your marks during the examination itself, ones that your H2 Maths Tuition Teachers or H2 JC Maths teachers frequently remind you of, but have never penned down.
1. Time Management
Do not spend all your time trying to solve a problem that you cannot fully solve until you have very little remaining time left for majority of the paper. This is a common mistake students make, which results in them doing poorly for other sections of the paper and negatively affects their overall grade. It would be beneficial for students to divide their time equally amongst questions, by allocating 1.8 minutes of time for each mark. Of course, this can be adjusted accordingly in terms of topics they find hard or easy. If you have H2 Maths Tuition, be sure to obtain more practice papers from your teachers so that you can have timed practices. To improve your time management, constant practice is compulsory as it helps to boost your familiarity with different question types so that you will not end up stumped if you are faced with a question you have had no experience with before.
2. Do not skip steps in your working
It is important for students to write all their calculations out when solving questions. Individual marks are awarded for the more important calculations, so you may end up losing marks you would have otherwise gained if you had written down the steps. Also, even if you are uncertain about whether or not you are on the right track for a question, it does not harm your grade to put down whatever steps you can solve. Marks will still be awarded even if you fail to achieve the final answer. Therefore, make sure to write full workings for all school and H2 Maths Tuition assignments so that you will make it a habit.
3. Check your calculations
It is easy to miss out steps or make calculation errors when you are in a hurry to finish all the questions in the paper. If you fear not having sufficient time at the end to properly check your workings, make sure that you are meticulous when you are attempting the question itself and double-check long workings on the spot by keying in the equation on the calculator twice. Once again, it helps to obtain more practice from your school tutors or H2 Maths Tuition teacher!
4. Be neat
This goes without saying but most students fail to do so anyway. This is extremely important, especially for your ‘A’ Level Paper and is applicable across all subjects. While your JC tutors may be familiar with your handwriting, which may unfortunately not be the most legible, the ones marking your papers are mostly retired UK teachers and they make not be the most patient in trying to make sense of what you’re writing. Try to keep your workings neat by writing in a straight line, and do not cramp all your workings in a single piece of paper. It is not the right time to be environmentally conscious during your ‘A’ Level Paper, so make sure to start workings on a fresh new sheet of paper. Try to increase the size of your handwriting so that markers will not have to squint to understand what you’re writing and be neat when cancelling workings. When drawing graphs, make sure to indicate your turning points precisely and that your graph is drawn proportionately. You may be marked down otherwise.