Careless mistakes (1 Viewer)

[Kaido]

I feel like the amount of careless errors i make is independent of the amount of papers i do.
How would you guys tackle this problem?

 

[leehuan]

Personally, the amount of careless mistakes increases for me when I decide to study whilst being more stressed.

Otherwise, have you considered the topics you make careless mistakes in? And what types of silly mistakes they could specifically be?
e.g. Calculator error (wrong number, degrees/radians), simple algebra/arithmetic mistake, forgetting a formula

 

[klavier]

Scan it four or five times.
Put it in different orders into your calculators and see if they match or not.

Maths is a subject less prone to silly mistakes because the answers are easily verified in most cases.

 

[photastic]

Time yourself.

 

[mrpotatoed]

You are probably trying to do 2-3 steps of working out in one step, causing you to do more maths than you may be capable of in your head. Look at how your errors occurred, if it happens when you are skipping a step in your working.. then that's probably it. When you try to do multiple steps in one go its easy to make a careless mistake.

 

[Drongoski]

I feel like the amount of careless errors i make is independent of the amount of papers i do.
How would you guys tackle this problem?

I have a nagging feeling that most cases of so-called "careless mistakes", are not really careless mistakes, but symptoms of poor grasp of important rules or principles of mathematical operations, especially involving basic algebra.

If you can show me your "careless mistakes", I'll probably be able to show poor grasps of basic algebra and the like. So, if this is indeed the case, then, to fix your problem, you need to fix those problems first.

 

[Mr_Kap]

What if careless mistakes are like when you are collecting terms and u accidentally do 2e^(x) + e^x = 4e^(x)

or when integrating something between two limits, reading the numbers wrong and integrating between two WRONG limits.

Or copying your answer wrong from one line to the next (like finding stat point a (5,7) and then when testing in second derivative accidentally test when x=6)

Or, leaving out a minus sign when expanding e.g writing -2x(x^2 + 3) = 2x^3 - 6x .... instead of -2x^3 - 6x

Or when factorising quadratics meant to be (x-3)(x+4) and you accidentally write it the wrong way round (x-4)(x+3)


I found i make at least one of these mistakes IN EVERY MATH EXAM NO MATTER HOW CAREFUL I TRY TO BE. Like one exam i finished 1 hour early and check my paper like a hundred times and i still forgot a minus sign.
I don't know how to improve. Every past paper i take timed i make these mistakes

 

[Flop21]

Be as relaxed as possible, stress makes silly mistakes more common. Find stress-control techniques.

Check your work as much as you can, using calculator if relevant.

When studying, do lots of past papers, or practice a lot, because practice does actually reduce silly mistakes.