Best way to avoid making silly mistakes?

[Danny]

Hi,

I currently lose more mistakes on CM1 due to silly mistakes than anything else.

Such mistakes include:

- Accidentally writing down the wrong interest rate (even when I write down the correct interest rate in one part of a question, I write down another interest rate for seemingly no reason in later parts of a question and evaluate that)
- Accidentally copying the wrong formula even though the notation for the one I have written down isn't the one I am copying
- Entering what I have written into the calculator wrong (even when the working is perfectly correct, the answer outputted isn't always what the working implies it should be)
- Forgetting to include terms randomly (including them in some questions and not others)
- Sometimes using the age of a life from a previous question instead of the age of the life in the current question without realising it until it is too late.

These mistakes don't seem to go away with rote practice and on many topics, I lose far more marks to silly mistakes racking up than anything else.

Is there anything I can do to avoid making these mistakes? This would make a monumental difference to my performance if I can address these.

 

[Joe Hook]

Hi Danny,

Some of your fellow students might be able to help you out with this more than me. However, I would recommend trying to slow down a little bit when you're working and keep checking back to the question to make sure you are using the right interest rate/formula/mortality rate.

On your calculator point I would strongly recommend using Excel. I find it much easier to break my calculations down and store numbers in excel. There's still the potential to write out a formula wrong but if you do then spot a mistake you might be able to correct all of your working by changing one cell eg the interest rate.

Joe