Hello all. I am taking the SAT in October but I have one problem. How can I stop silly mistakes??? Sometimes when there’s an equation with 2x-5=10 I subtract 5 from the other side not add… And sometimes when a reading answer is blatantly obvious but I choose the wrong answer because I thought the question meant the author not someone in the passage.
I lose over 200 points in silly mistakes!!! How can I stop them?
I have that problem on chemistry tests a lot. I assume the problem is asking for the highest occupied molecular orbital, but it’s actually asking for the lowest unoccupied, or whatever. What I have started doing in order to combat this is marking the important parts of the question as I read it.
Just a dumb top-of-my-head example:
In this passage, the narrator and Julie are friends who study together. According to the narrator, what is holding Julie back from her full potential?
I would underline “According to the narrator,” so I don’t pick any answers that are according to Julie or according to the author. I would then circle the main part of the question, “What’s holding her back?” to remind me of what I’m answering.
No magic tricks. But know that you are not suffering alone…
www.google.com/search?q=silly+mistakes+site%3Atalk.collegeconfidential.com
You can read through those threads for guidance, inspiration or just comfort that you are not the only one.
You’re not alone. I have made many silly mistakes before - for example, I made 3 or 4 silly mistakes on an AIME once (including forgetting to divide by 3 due to rotations) and that cost me USAMO qualification.
More info on silly mistakes:
http://www.chess.com/blog/VaradDeo2147/top-10-biggest-blunders-grandmasters-made-at-chess