Don't Rush! Take your early Exam Questions slowly | Top 7 GCSE Maths Mistakes

Part 2 of 7 in our series "Top 7 Mistakes which GCSE Maths students make".

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Invest three minutes of your time now to avoid heartbreak on Results Day!

For those of you in Year 11, or with children in that same year, you'll be acutely aware that GCSE exam season is little more than six weeks away now! The Easter holidays, during which you might have done lots of revision - or conversely, none at all (I won't tell if you don't) - are fast drawing to a close.

This blog series by Gill Learning highlights seven common GCSE Maths mistakes and HOW to resolve them before the day of your exam rolls around! And whichever exam board your school or academic institution opts for, these common mistakes will apply to yours.

In today's post, we'll explore a common but largely involuntary mistake which students of all abilities are prone to: rushing their first few exam questions! Yes, there's a time and a place for working quickly, but here's a clue: it's not just after the invigilator says "You may begin..."

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Examiner's Reports - documents that are released every year after the exams themselves are all wrapped up - consistently reveal that the first few questions of GCSE Maths papers are answered incorrectly by a disproportionate number of candidates. In other words, loads of people get the first two or three questions wrong, often in a facepalm-worthy, 2+2=5 kind of way.

Why? Because everyone's nervous, and hence everyone rushes! Your brain is a living, breathing, imperfect thing; it doesn't much like exams. Even those people whose brains are ostensibly well-suited to exams are channelling some nervous energy and some stress, and yes, in that sense, stress can be a positive thing at certain times and in certain places.

But nevertheless, just pause for a second when you turn over that first page of the exam booklet, and breathe. 90-minutes can zoom by in an exam hall, but it's not going anywhere that quickly just yet either. Take the first couple of questions at a sensible pace, perhaps 50% slower than your usual. Check your answers mentally, and silly little things like the legibility of your handwriting. Once you're up and running, already with four or five marks in the bag, you'll hit your usual stride and can carry the momentum you get from such a calm, positive start to the paper all the way through to its last page!

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A short but sweet gem of advice for you today, everyone. Come back tomorrow for part three when we'll delve into the DO's and DON'T's of using your calculator!