To get an A or distinction in Mathematics or any subject, it is not whether you have the intelligence or not, it is more to do with whether you have the commitment and the willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve that noble goal. This is very important, before you read on, please read the words of this paragraph again one more time.
For each chapter, there are a fixed number of question types that can be asked, these question types are the constituent topics of the chapter. An example, if the chapter is Coordinate Geometry, then the topics can be:-
A) Distance between two points
B) Division of a Line Segment
C) Area of Polygons
D) Equation of straight line
E) Parallel and Perpendicular lines
Within each topic, for example topic A, there are an infinite number of variations in which they can be asked. The good news is, each one can be solved using similar steps and it is only the numerical values that are different. The questions asked in topic A can be of variations A1, A2, A3, A4 etc, they are still topic A questions nevertheless. If the student can confidently answer A1, A2, A3, then A4 to A100 should not be a problem.
One common blunder students make is, they spend a long time practicing a long list of questions on topics A and B only thinking they have thoroughly revised the whole chapter since they have done so many questions from the chapter and missed out on topics C, D and E, thus oblivion to the fact that their revision on that chapter was not complete.
To have thoroughly revised this chapter, one needs to have done at least four questions from each topic of each chapter. If this is done, then the student has done all different types and variations that can be asked of him in the test or exam.
At the beginning of the semester, get a collection of the previous six to seven sets of past year questions and about one third through the course, attempt all those that had been taught in class and the rest of them without exception as the examination date nears and ensure that your answers are correct.
If you are stuck on any of them, enlist the help of your teacher or your friend who knows how to answer it. This will give you a feel of what is expected of you in the exam.
For almost any Maths exam, there will always be topics that are asked more frequently than others and some topics will virtually come out every year. Browse through each section of each paper and note down those topics and then make sure to practice more of them than the others. If questions on
topic E is asked often, then do more of the questions from topic E.
Students must not lose confidence in themselves if they do not get the correct answers first time round. This is very normal and with enough practice, I can assure you that you will gradually improve. There is no secret formula to excel in Mathematics, it is just a matter of practice and more practice of all the different types of questions.
It is also a good idea to redo the questions that had been correctly answered before especially those which you couldn't do them at the first attempt or had been done many months ago.
Answering Mathematics questions needs a lot of focus and concentration, it is important to sleep one or two hours earlier the night before the exam in order to avoid costly human error due to lapses of concentration because of lack of sleep. Burning the midnight oil before any exam is definitely not advisable.
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