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Silly Mistakes (1 Viewer)

Jack_11

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Does anyone know a way to get rid of them? Without them, I would be a lot better at maths. Even though I might come out of a test being able to answer every question, I can never get 100% because of these silly mistakes. So silly, I could write a '1' for a '2' or '+' instead of '-' And it's not one or two...I get do an average of 10 of these errors. Any help would be much appreciated.
 

McLake

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OK Jack, we're going to reveal the secret to not macking silly mistakes, passed down throught the ages, to all HSC students after they complete their HSC. The answer is 42!

Silly mistakes are just that, silly. You cannot eliminate tehm, Even re-checking your work often does not aviod them. Mistake made that lead you to an answer tha you can tell is inncorrect are easier to detect, but mistakes that lead to legit sounding answers are almost impossible to detect. Learn to live with them.
 

xiao1985

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lolz, way to spoil the fun of meanin of life mclake =)

uhm, do ALOT of practice... even there are no tangible proof, but they are quite effective in terms of get rid of careless mistakes...
 

ND

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I'm in uni and i still make really stupid mistakes. Like in my last math exam i took the limit as n approached infinity when the question specified it going to 0. Oh and i can rarely do a full matrix elementary operations question without making at least one silly mistake. If only there was a way to eliminate these annoying errors....
 

withoutaface

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There is an answer, and that's past papers. I reckon I lost a good 20 marks in 2u hsc last year due to silly errors (ie all marks i lost), and since ive been going hammer and tong on the papers I am only losing 4-5 marks over an entire 4u exam, so there is hope, just need to work at it.
 

Archman

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well imagine if noone in NSW makes a silly mistake, they'll need a harder test to keep people separated. so i guess it's part of the exam.
 

Rorix

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do questions by inspection


it eliminates the whole messy 'working' thing
 

Rorix

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ive noticed that I've been making too many joke posts recently so i need to even out the quota :cool:


firstly, you make silly mistakes because you suck at tests. It is important for you to realise this. The problem is either a) you are far too elite for the test so just take shortcuts (e.g. archman, ngai) or b) you suck. Either problem, it is important for you to come to this realisation. Admitting you have a problem is half the solution, or something. You've probably taken offence to the suggestion that you suck. But you do. Face it. You don't get 100% in tests because you don't deserve 100% in tests. But it's OK, most people suck.

Now you might be wondering 'Rorix, how do I suck less?'. I don't know because I also suck. But I have some suggestions. Firstly, doing more papers can't hurt. Make sure you do them with worked solutions and go back over answers you got wrong to see if you keep making the same mistakes. Secondly, don't perform 12 operations on the equation in your head without writing something down. Don't worry, no-one will think you have a smaller manhood for not doing questions by inspection. Now, quickly check the numbers from line to line if you did something complex, it's quicker than checking at the end of the test. Note this doesn't involve redoing the whole thing, but if you get a fraction out of 6 - 3 you might just have a problem.
 

mojako

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proper fraction is defined as...
p/q where p and q have no common factors (remembering 1 and -1 aren't factors)
 

Slidey

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All rationals are fraction, though, and Rorix said fraction, not proper fraction, 6/2 is a suitable answer which means Rorix is pwned omg lol. :)
 

mojako

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actually, when I said proper fraction I wasnt referring to any formal definition... proper was just a random word I came up with.

but now I looked it up (in electronic dictionary of course) and it means a fraction in which the value of the numerator is less than the value of the denominator.
so its different from my definition :p

and.. I might be wrong.. but I think in primary school I learnt that 1 is a factor of every number.
But I think 1 and -1 can never be common factor (of 2 or more numbers). but they can be factors of a particular integral number.
 

Archman

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mojako said:
But I think 1 and -1 can never be common factor (of 2 or more numbers). but they can be factors of a particular integral number.
yes they can.
 

mojako

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btw cambridge ext2 uses the term "have no common factor" on page 120 and 121 (if you have that book :p) and doesn't mention "excluding 1 and -1"
also it uses the term divisor when saying that any rational root p/q ("where p and q have no common factor") of a polynomial with integer coefficients is a divisor of the constant term.
so thats why I thought common factor doesn't include 1 and -1.
 

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