Son losing lots of marks through carelessness - help!
Moderators: Section Moderators, Forum Moderators
-
- Posts: 46
- Joined: Sat Oct 24, 2009 5:56 pm
Son losing lots of marks through carelessness - help!
My son just did a maths practice paper which should have taken 1 hr - he finished after 35 minutes saying he'd gone through and checked. Sure enough, he's made loads of really careless mistakes either by misreading the question (eg writing the "total of four purchases" down correctly but missing the fact that they actually wanted to know how much change you'd have from £5 after those four purchases) or by making a mistake in a simple calculation, eg not adding in a carried-over figure. So he got 65 out of 100, but there were at least 15-20 questions that he didn't get through carelessness.
Do you have any good tips on getting your children to check their papers carefully, particularly with maths, or not be so careless in the first place!!
Do you have any good tips on getting your children to check their papers carefully, particularly with maths, or not be so careless in the first place!!
Hopefully this score will have shocked him enough and he'll learn from this mistake. Of course if he puts his working down that will always help him get some points even if the answer is wrong. I always tell my sons to check and see if the answer looks sensible. So, for example, if they multiply 48x11 and they put down 5280 I always tell them to think about what would 50x10 have equalled so does their answer look sensible.
-
- Posts: 245
- Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 7:43 pm
-
- Posts: 271
- Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:34 am
- Location: S East
DS1 drove me to distraction with careless mistakes in Maths. Teacher's end of term reports equally frustrated.
Gentle persuasion, reading Riot Act, attempts at embarrassment , all to no avail.
Practice, practice, practice........finaly worked (or maybe he began to mature) . Best of luck.
Gentle persuasion, reading Riot Act, attempts at embarrassment , all to no avail.
Practice, practice, practice........finaly worked (or maybe he began to mature) . Best of luck.
Exams are formidable for the best prepared. The greatest fool may ask what the wisest man cannot answer.
Re: my suggestion earlier. I don't think that there would be time in most tests to do colour highlighting...but what it DOES do is illustrate to the child how important it is to READ the question properly and to realise the pertinent information and the superfluous information.
If the child learns how to discern between the two then they will properly understand what is required of them. Practise now so that your child can read the question properly during pressurised tests.
If the child learns how to discern between the two then they will properly understand what is required of them. Practise now so that your child can read the question properly during pressurised tests.
-
- Posts: 245
- Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 7:43 pm
one of the best techniques I have found is to mark it with the pupil as it is, going through each question. often the pupil will say see the answer fairly quickly.
The contrast between the mark they got and the mark they might have had if they had taken time to actually read the question can be quite an eye opener
The contrast between the mark they got and the mark they might have had if they had taken time to actually read the question can be quite an eye opener
-
- Posts: 46
- Joined: Sat Oct 24, 2009 5:56 pm