Time management for GCSEs

My daughter who is taking her GCSEs this year brought home some test papers. That's good for me because I can talk about exam technique and the first thing to say is read the instructions. If it says use black ink then use black ink. I have known some applications not chosen for shortlisting because an instruction like this has not been followed. Let's face it, employers want people who can follow simple instructions.

Exam technique is really important. If it says do all rough work in the book then that is what you do. This may be for your benefit. If your answer is wrong you may still get some credit for working in the right direction. If you know how many marks each question is worth then try to apportion a similar amount of time. If question one is worth 10% of the mark then try to use 10% of the time. This should make sense to mathematicians. The importance of time management is easily seen by taking the opposite scenario; you spend 90% of your time on 10% of the questions. This leaves 90% of the questions to be completed in 10% of the time. In this case you are not going to do well.

If you do well in maths there is one big bonus in that you will be able to plan your time for any other exam. Maths is everywhere.

That sums it up.