9 Specialist Maths Exam Tips from a 50 Raw Student

Hey! I’m Zain, and I graduated in 2018 from Nossal High School with a 50 raw in VCE Specialist Maths and the Premier’s Award. So, you’re looking for the secrets to nailing the VCE Specialist Maths Exam? Well you won’t find them here… But what I can offer you is the advice that served me well and helped me score my best. Feel free to take away as much or as little as you like from this list of 9 Tips; I don’t claim that this list is definitive, objective or exhaustive. Ok here we go…

TIP #1: Replicate Exam Conditions in Practice

When Usain Bolt practices his 100m sprint, does he run 40m and then stop? Does he run 50 metres, stop, watch a YouTube video, grab something to eat, and then run the last 50? I don’t know enough about sprint training to answer these questions… But hopefully you’ll see my point.

Just like a professional athlete tries to replicate the conditions of their sport as accurately as they can in training, so should you! The best preparation for an exam, Specialist Maths or not, is a practice exam under the same conditions. Practicing under these conditions will teach you to manage your time effectively and to concentrate for the required period of time (which isn’t as easy as you might think). Of course, you won’t always have 2 hours spare to sit down and crunch a Spesh Exam 2, and so there is still value in doing short bouts of study/practice questions. But as exam day approaches, I highly recommend doing a full run through under exam conditions.

TIP #2: Study Your Errors

For some other subjects that I didn’t care for too much (what’s that stupid subject called that has to go in your top 4?), my standard response to getting a SAC or practice test back was to look at the mark, say “ahhh well” or “sweet”, and then move on. Let me be clear, it’s super fun to chuck your tests away without a second thought, especially when your score ain’t too hot. I still do it from time to time. However, if you’re serious about improving your skills, studying your errors is absolutely crucial. Take the time to go back through a practice exam and identify exactly why you lost marks and how to fix it.

Go through your exam to the point where you would get full marks if you sat the same one the next day.

TIP #3: Use Your Time Wisely

Knock off as many easy questions as you can FIRST. The order in which you complete the exam doesn’t matter, so leave those questions that look a bit dicey to the end. Many will argue that in Exam 2 you should do the extended response first because you can guess the multiple choice if you run out of time. I agree that this is a good idea but if you can manage your time well you can do it in any order (I did it in order). My strategy was to simply go though in order until I hit a hard question. When I hit a hard question, I would give it a couple of minutes of thought and a quick attempt. If I was still unsure, I would asterisk it and come back to it at the end when I (hopefully) have some spare time to think.

Finally, if you’ve answered everything, awesome! Use the rest of the time to proofread.

TIP #4: Balance Accuracy and Speed

VCE Specialist Maths Exams are not so easy to finish in time, but with practice and experience (as per Tip 1) there may come a time when you can comfortably answer all the questions within the time limit. Once you reach this point, attempting to go any faster is probably not valuable. There is certainly a sweet spot for speed and for me, I aimed to finish Exam 1 with 10 minutes left over for checking and Exam 2 with about 15 minutes. VCE Specialist Maths Exam 1s are riddled with opportunities to make a small algebraic or numerical mistake (vectors always killed me), so I found that trying to rush any faster didn’t end well.

TIP #5: Get it Right the First Time

Simples *meerkat noise* Now what do I actually mean by this?

In my experience, trying to find mistakes in my working was near to impossible. Not because there weren’t mistakes in there, but it’s just very hard to see where you’ve gone wrong in general. If you hand your answer to a teacher or another student, they may find your mistake immediately with a fresh set of eyes. But that luxury is not available in the exam. Thus, I tried my hardest to eradicate silly mistakes the first time I answered a question. And this goes back to Tip 4 about not rushing through the paper. Rushing and making mistakes will always cost you more time overall than slowing down and making sure your working out is clean.

TIP #6: Show Clear Working

Not just so that examiners give you marks but because it makes spotting your errors far easier. This is something I worked on in year 12 and it helped me a lot to improve my scores in maths. When your working is all over the shop, it’s hard to know if you’re proceeding correctly or logically. Good working includes things like correct use of notation (maths is very precise, notational misuse can cost marks), clear progression from one line to the next, not scribbling working in the margins, not equating unequal quantities, and providing reasons for rejecting answers. Strive for clear working and you’ll see that your mistakes will slowly disappear, and your examiners will never rob you of marks.

TIP #7: Stay Cool, You’ve Done this All Before

I can recall several occasions when I’ve walked into an exam and my gut reaction was that “this is harder than anything I’ve seen before.” This instinct is rarely true and it’s never helpful. Oftentimes, ‘reading time’ turns into ‘s#!t bricks time’ and the exam performance suffers. Once you get going on the actual exam you’ll find that it’s really not too different from the practice questions you’ve done. Expect it to be challenging going in and expect there to be a few curvy questions which may stump you. This way you won’t be surprised, and you won’t get nervous. As per Tip 3, leave these tricky questions to the end and give them your best shot with a calm mind.

TIP #8: Pull an All-Nighter Before the Exam

Just kidding… Don’t be stupid. It’s never the move.

TIP #9: Get Lucky

Let’s be honest, nailing an exam requires some luck. The difference between students who get a 40 and 50 in VCE Specialist Maths is not a great deal at all. You can be the best student and still have a bad day. Study hard, perhaps follow some of these tips, and give yourself the best chance at success but at the end of the day, your scores are just numbers and no one will care about them (including you!) very soon.

That’s all I’ve got for you! Best of luck and go show VCAA who’s boss.

If you want to join Zain’s VCE Specialist Maths 3/4 Tutoring then click here to register for a trial lesson for FREE!