<p>I've taken 6 practice tests in the blue book so far, and my dilemma is that I always end up making careless errors or get questions wrong that I could have gotten right if I thought about it more, especially in the math and writing sections. Not so much for CR, but when I'm reading the CollegeBoard's explanations, I completely understand why X answer choice is correct and mine was not.</p>
<p>I think that I could improve my CR score a lot with practice, but I'm not sure how to approach math and writing anymore. I don't know whether I should do the questions as fast as I can and go back to every single question to check, or if I should do the problem twice as I'm going along. I usually have 5~8 minutes remaining on each section, so I'm scared I'll run out of time if I do either or only get to check half of my answers.</p>
<p>Any insight is appreciated, thanks!</p>
<p>This is a question that comes up here quite often. I doubt that there is an easy answer but I will give two recommendations:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Don’t use the label “careless errors”. It’s not accurate or helpful. I’m pretty sure that you do care a lot! Instead, keep a notebook where you record specifically what went wrong with each of those questions that you feel you should have had right. Was it a concept that you forgot? A step that you skipped? An arithmetic error? Whatever it was, IDENTIFY it. If you do this for the 6 tests you have taken, patterns may emerge. And just identifying the error more specifically and descriptively may help you to avoid repeating it. When my physics students write lab reports, I don’t let them use the phrase “human error” – all of our errors are human! We have to try to diagnose what actually went wrong.</p></li>
<li><p>Stop worrying about running out of time. And do not try to go faster. Doing every problem twice is inefficient. There are only a handful of problems that need that second look. Why not try going slower so that the handful shrinks. After all, if you go slow enough to eliminate what you call “careless errors” but you don’t get to answer the very last question, you will probably be happy with the result.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks, @pckeller! I need to answer most of the questions correctly to reach my target score (this is CC after all, haha), so I can’t just leave one or two questions blank at the end, but I suppose accuracy will come with more practice and review.</p>