Here is my 4 step approach for the student that asked me: "How do I Stop making silly mistakes on exams?"
It was actually two people that asked me this yesterday. They both would make mistakes in the exam and practice tests and when revising it would be obvious what their mistake was.
This is a common issue that I want to address. This is not an informational issue this is a skill/habit issue. So just seeing the corrected answer will NOT help. It's not a problem of what you know its what you do when you see the question.
This will apply more towards MCQs because that's what my exam has, but feel free to adapt it to your exam.
You need to train yourself on what you want to do when you see the question, and every step is there to avoid a certain mistake. Ill show you the steps I take and the mistake I am avoiding with it:-
- Scan the answers really quick
(this is so that I am thinking within the topic/subject of the q, have you ever had an answer i mind and it was none of the choices? this avoids that)
- Read carefully the last sentence in the question/ paragraph with the "?" mark
(This applies to long questions with 4-5 lines. Look at the question sentence so you know what your looking for when you read the rest)
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Look for the 'hint". This is basically anything that stands out and is more exam specific. It can be a picture, anything underlined any "NOT" before a word.
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Read through the whole question from start to end. you now know what topic this is, what you want to answer and what might be a hint.
Bonus: I give myself permission to skip a question for any reason at all or no reason at all. I can skip any question I dont like and come back to it in the end. This saves my time and keeps me calm and focused for the questions Im sure I can solve and I leave the hard ones for the end when I have more time and can afford to pull my hair abit Ill be done in a few mins anyway.
Posted May 1, 2026, 3:45 AM UTC