Here are some top tips for the day of your GCSE Maths exam.
- Make sure you know where your exam is, when it starts and which one you’re doing.
- Do you need a calculator, ID, pens, pencils, ruler or protractor? Get it all out and ready to take with you the day before. If you need a calculator check which ones you are allowed to take with you and make sure that yours is appropriate for your exam.
- Breakfast is the most important meal of the day! Don’t go to your exam with an empty, rumbling belly. Have a healthy breakfast. Good options, are porridge, weetabix or two slices of wholemeal toast. You can accompany these with a banana or a handful of blueberries. Also remember to stay hydrated, your brain is over 70% water. Drinking water or fruit juice are a good options. However, don’t drink excessive amounts, otherwise you will be taking regular trips to the toilet.
- Turn up in plenty of time but don’t get sucked in by panicking friends who are still trying to cram in those last few facts and formulas; they will ultimately confuse you and stress you out.
- Don’t forget to turn your phone off and it leave it in your bag or some other safe place.
- Read the paper, and each question, carefully. How many questions do you need to do? Don’t be the person who rushes to complete all the questions when you can plan your time effectively and set aside enough time per question. Remember the questions in the exam get progressively harder, so allow more time for the latter questions. You can use Maths to plan your time effectively. For example, for a 90 minute paper with 21 questions, you can split the paper up into three sections. Spend 15 minutes on the first 7 questions, 25 minutes on the second 7 questions and 40 minutes on the final 7 questions. This leaves 10 minutes for you to check through your answers.
- Check the marks for each question, a 5 mark question will need a more in-depth answer than a 2 mark question. In a Maths exam, usually the higher mark questions require you to apply more than one calculation or formula to find the answer.
- If you start to run out of time go through the rest of the paper bullet pointing the key parts of what your answer would have been such as the formula you would have used. You can pick up marks for showing understanding through workings out even if you do not write an answer.
- After the exam relax. You’ve done it now! Don’t start discussing the answers with people and dissecting the paper it will only make you doubt yourself.
If you have put the hard work in then in theory you should achieve good results. Don’t fret about the results, what is done is done. If you have more exams coming up then have a break before getting back to revision.
Good luck!
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