Why do I keep losing marks in exams?

Straight into the bag

Priya is in Year 12. Her chemistry test comes back with 58 on the front and red crosses down every page. She reads the number, feels her face go hot, and pushes the paper into her bag.

That night she decides to work harder. She rereads the whole topic, two hours of it. The next test comes back 57.

It has gone like this all year. A bad number, a long evening of rereading, and the same number again. Each time she decides she is just bad at chemistry.

The number on the front tells you how many marks went. It never tells you where they went. So Priya spent two hours fixing a problem she might not even have.

Four columns, one pen

Fold the front page back so the score is out of sight. You need the test, a blank page and ten minutes. Draw four columns.

Go through the paper one cross at a time. For each lost mark, ask what actually happened there, and put a tick in that column.

You are sorting, not grading yourself. If a mark fits two columns, pick the first thing that went wrong. A good guess is fine.

Not sure if you froze or never knew it? Cover the answer and try the question again now, at home. If it comes back, you froze. If it still will not come, you did not know it yet.

Universities hand out forms like this when tests come back. Carnegie Mellon's teaching centre calls them exam wrappers.

Most of hers were misreads

Priya expected the first column to be full. It had three ticks. The misread column had eleven.

She had described when the question said explain. Twice she wrote about the wrong ion. Rereading the topic could never have touched that.

Every column has its own fix, and working harder only fixes the first one. For Priya that was the smallest.

On her next practice paper, Priya underlined what each question asked before writing a word. The first page felt slow. By the second it felt normal.

Ten minutes tonight

Find the last test you got back. Old, crumpled or a homework quiz, any of them works.

Fold the score out of sight and sort just the first cross. Keep going if you like, then do the fix for your biggest column once.

Keep the page. After the next test, sort again and put the two pages side by side. A column that shrinks is proof the fix worked.

If you have ADHD, red ink can land harder than it should. The columns help with that too. Each tick turns a bad feeling into one small job you know how to do.

Plan2Ace

Four columns on paper are enough. Plan2Ace marks the practice and brings the misses back.

Exam practice runs against a timer and is marked for you, so you see where the marks went while it is fresh. The questions you missed come back when they are due. Rather use a pen? The method is the point.

A few more questions