A-Level Maths Week 3 Exam Preparation Tips

Ayyyyy, check you out looking so fly (slang for ”to be cool, amazing” - Urban Dictionary). Working to a plan, somewhat sticking to it, going over what you don’t know – my g (a term of endearment in the world of slang), you’re bossing it (slang for you’re doing well – the slang stops now I promise).

In all seriousness though, I know from experience that Maths A-Level isn’t the easiest thing in the world but you’re getting there step by step and that’s an achievement in itself, and if you’ve not or you feel super behind, rest assured – even if you’re reading this the day before your exam, there’s still time to make a big difference, especially with what I’m going to share with you now: the power of past papers.

You may already be a massive user and advocate of past papers, or you may have never done one/only done one when your teacher has told you to/only done once when your teacher has physically stoop over you with a threatening glare and promised a lifetime of detentions if you didn’t get it finished.

Past papers are almost a cheat sheet to your maths exams; there is only so much that can be asked of you and so theoretically if you went through all the maths past papers there are, you’ll have addressed everything you could ever be asked, it’s just that they may be asked in different ways – and that’s another reason to do so many. There’s only so many ways they can hide binomial expansions, differentiation, and proofs (it may be a lot of ways, but it’s a finite number) and so the more papers you do and importantly make sure you *understand* the more you increase the grade you’ll get in your exams. In fact, our research shows the more past papers you do, the better your exam results – so, what’ve you got to lose? But if we’re going to do this, we need to do it well.

How to do past papers well:

1. Print them out

This may seem basic, but actually doing the questions on the paper as opposed to in a notebook or on spare paper will help you in various ways; it’ll help you know how much space you have, how to best lay out your answers and just help your mind get used to it. It’s the little things that help. If you don’t have a printer or can’t afford to print it out, try printing some out at the library (though it may still cost there) or at school if you get printing credit/your teachers are happy to print them out for you. If it’s not doable however, don’t stress – it’s great if you can print it but it’s not the be

2. Use your books and don’t time yourself

Often, students will tell me that they can’t do past papers or simply just don’t do past papers because they can’t do it in the time set or they don’t know enough knowledge so ‘it’s not worth it’. I don’t know if you’ve gotten the memo yet but the way to do well in maths is to ‘practise practise practise!’ Doing your maths paper open book (using your notes to help you) actually helps you to take the information on board as you are using it in context. This means as well as practising exam technique you will also be learning content you have yet to learn – so you’ll be working smarter and saving yourself time in the long run. And don’t bother timing yourself, right now you just want to focus on making sure you know the content, so whether it takes you 2 minutes for a 7-marker question or 3 hours – that doesn’t matter right now, the focus at this stage of doing past papers is to learn the content and get used to the question style.

3. Do them in exam conditions

Once you’ve done a few papers and feel like you know enough content or have a few days to a week before your exam, whichever comes first, start doing the papers in exam conditions; this means with no help from books, and timing yourself. This will help you push yourself to spend less time on each question and force your brain to practice accessing the information it needs. I know this process may freak a few of you out but take it easy and in little steps. To start with you could just time and see how long it takes for you to do it and if it’s too long gradually start trying to do questions a little quicker, like going 10s faster per question will save you lots of time overall! Remember, to find out how long to spend per question you want to do minutes/marks. So, if there are 100 marks and 2hrs to do the paper = 120minutes/100 marks = 1.2 minutes per mark.

Personally, in a situation like that I would try to stick to 1 minute per mark and then use the rest of the time on harder questions/to review the paper at the end.

4. Mark Honestly/Harshly

Once you’ve done your paper, either in the style of step 2 or step 3, it’s time to mark your paper. My top tip with this is to mark yourself harshly. Obviously, don’t mark the question wrong if you got it right, but if there is a small mistake that you’re not sure whether or not you’d get the mark for, mark it as wrong – let’s not lie to ourselves. When you get it wrong, you’ll remember it and be less likely to make that same mistake in the future. Saying this though, sometimes if I need some TLC, I may just give myself the mark to make myself feel better – so it’s a fine balance.

5. Review your answers

This is perhaps the most important point when it comes to doing past papers. As much as it is all well and good doing the papers just to practise, the real gold comes when you look at the answers you got wrong and more importantly, why you got them wrong. It’s great when to have a system to do this. For my exams I would make a table such as the one below to help me analyse what I’d done.

I’d write the question down, how many marks the question was worth and how many marks I lost on it. Then in the next column I’d write down what I thought the main reason I lost marks on that question was, such as ‘silly’ if I’d simply written down the wrong word or number or didn’t read the question properly as in the example above. Other ‘reason’ categories I’d have would be ‘revise’, if it was something I knew that I knew but needed to increase detail in or ‘LEARN’ which I would highlight in bold or caps lock or a different colour to show me an area in my knowledge that I needed to go back and read up on or practise more. There may be other reasons you find, such as ‘practise’ or ‘stay awake’ – write whatever feels most appropriate. Then we get to the crème de la crème: the info column. This is where you put the correct answer if relevant and any notes to yourself such as, ‘learn this equation’ or ‘go over integration’ etc. Using this means that when it comes to the day(s) before your exam you have a document telling you what type of questions you should spend your last bits of time revising and any key things you should look over before. It also helps you identify questions you keep getting wrong, thus showing you what to go over. The great thing about this too, is you can use it for all your subjects, not just maths! Look at me giving you free tips for other subjects, I’m a saint really and we all know it – you’re oh so very welcome xoxoxox

6. LEARN

Once you’ve analysed and made the table of what went wrong, don’t just move past it. Look at everything you noted to practise and learn, and then, surprise surprise, spend some time practising and learning it! What’s the point of identifying it if you aren’t going to correct it? It may be a simple fix or something you really struggle with (hence why you got it wrong) but there is time to make a difference right up until you enter that exam room, so bring out your textbook and get learning.

7. WRITE

Nice, all done. Time for a new paper.

And that’s it! Follow those steps and you should find the marks you get suddenly start to fly sky high (or at least get better by a little bit). They are by no means easy, but they are doable.

Keep going and don’t give up, you’ve got this. And if you’re getting tired, and don’t know how to keep going – my next post has something for you, so hang tight – I’ll see you soon.

Have any questions about how to prepare for your A-Level exams? Having problems with any hard to understand content or tricky past exam questions? Then ask Seyi. Seyi will be hosting a series of Q&A webinars in the 2 weeks before final exams. Post your questions here, and Seyi will answer them in these sessions.