4 Common Mistakes Students make and how to Fix Them
As the OC and Selective Test draw closer, parents often ask us:
“Why do my child's marks vary so much?”
“How do we get more consistent results?”
“I don’t understand why they keep making these errors”
“Why does their performance barely improve?”
The best way to answer these questions is to identify exactly where students are losing marks in each test. This is crucial for undertaking targeted practice so they can spend prep time more efficiently and get more consistent results.
Common Causes of Errors:
1. INSUFFICIENT UNDERSTANDING OF TOPICS, ITS COMPONENTS AND VARIATIONS OF QUESTIONS
For most students, the vast majority of errors in an exam stem from a lack of in-depth understanding of the components of each topic and more importantly the various question types that can be constructed from these.
Questions may be worded in a particular way to guide students towards certain errors or away from a specific pattern of problem solving.
For example, a student with a basic understanding of ratios may not be able to adapt to a test question asking them to compare and find the difference between 2 different ratios.
Similarly, they might be able to grasp the nuances of a poem and understand the meaning of each of the smaller stanzas but neglect how these work together to explain the main idea/theme.
Letter or number patterns in Thinking Skills can also often confuse students that don’t have enough experience with the most common letter or number patterns.
For students that are scoring around 50-60% or lower, these types of errors are the most common and can be worked on with a systematic approach to the major Mathematics/Thinking Skills topics and exposure to all Reading text types and question types, as covered in our WEMT classes.
2. “SILLY MISTAKES”
Another frustrating error that all students make is what people commonly refer to as “silly mistakes”, which stems from a lack of attention to details.
By preparing correctly and paying careful attention to the details of a question, the frequency of these errors can be majorly decreased.
It is extremely important to get into the habit of underlining, highlighting or circling keywords such as always, opposite, does not, 2nd paragraph, in this text, in this context, most likely, least likely, etc. as these small words can completely alter the meaning of the question and therefore the answer.
If your child makes many of these errors, specific practice can be undertaken depending on the subject:
Reading - More practice with small-detail questions on fact based/scientific articles, newspapers, reports, interviews, etc..
Mathematics/Thinking Skills - Do more questions of the same difficulty to practice identifying the key words and training out the old habits of not paying attention to all relevant details.
3. ‘BLOCKS’ OF MISTAKES
While blocks of mistakes are more often due to a specific knowledge gap (poems, graphs, vocabulary, etc.), it can also signify a lapse in attention in the middle of the test for average to above average students.
These students need to extend their attention span. Much like a marathon runner would increase their stamina by progressively increasing the time they run, students should see how long they can maintain undivided focus for and slowly increase this with each practice session.
Sections in the Selective Test are 30 minutes and 40 minutes long. If students are able to increase their attention span by a few minutes each week, they will have no problem sitting through an entire part of the exam without becoming distracted in the middle.
4. OTHER FACTORS
There are many miscellaneous factors at play when it comes to a child’s performance in exams.
Beyond how much preparation the students have done, the following factors can account for some variation when it comes to their performance in each exam:
Their mood before/during the test
What and how much they eat or drink before the test
Events that happened before the test
How much sleep they get the night before
Confidence levels
Feelings of pressure
The composition/appearance of the test questions
It takes a lot of maturity to be able to tune out the impacts of these factors. Consequently, the students most affected by these tend to be younger and have less experience with the exam environment. The more practice they take under strict exam conditions, the better they will get at getting ‘into the zone’ and composing themselves prior to the test.
The Value of Errors
At this stage, it is very very important to be comfortable with the idea that students will make mistakes! Mistakes are valuable teachers that highlight areas of improvement. Children should not be bogged down by the errors but instead take them in their stride to make continuous improvements. At the end of the day, every mistake made before the test is one less to make on the day of the exam. Ultimately, there is some time until the OC/Selective exams and plenty more afterwards to keep improving - education is lifelong!
Want to help your child reduce their errors? Enrol in our courses today!
Find out more about our in WEMT or Trial Test programs for OC Test Preparation and Selective Test Preparation.
Published 19th September 2020, last edited 8th July 2023
