Exam Advice - WJEC GCSE

Here’s some advice for the WJEC GCSE Mathematics & Mathematics Numeracy exams that I hope might help!

It is usually a good idea to answer questions on topics that you find easier first and then build up to questions on topics that you find more difficult later on, rather than answering the questions in order, as it can build up your confidence during the exam and when you then do move on to the more difficult questions at least you will know that you have already answered a bunch of questions which can take the pressure off a little bit. However if you do this, double check that you haven’t missed any questions!

If you get stuck on a question, don’t be afraid to move on and come back to it later in the exam. Here’s a few reasons why:

• Because you may do something later on in the exam which may remind you what to do in the previous question.
• In the back of your mind you may still be thinking about / working on that question as you go through the rest of the paper.
• When you come back to said question after a while, you may look at it with a fresh perspective and gain more of an idea of how to move forward with it.
• It may just be a case of warming up, and once you do some other questions you may feel more prepared to tackle the one you skipped previously.

Make sure to not rush the exam, if you rush that's when things normally go wrong, however at the same time you will need to keep a good pace in order to give each question a fair attempt. You do need to keep an eye on the clock without letting the amount of time you have left add to the pressure. If you check how many marks a question is worth that can give you a rough idea of both how many steps may be in said question and roughly how long to spend on said question, this should only be used as a rough guide though.

In terms of the OCW (organising, communicating and writing accurately) question, don’t forget that you do not want to write an essay, you need to instead provide a structured response that you explain with brief descriptions as you go along but you may not even need that, or sometimes a more full explanation with some / all steps may be more appropriate. It needs to be clear and easy to follow and make sure to include a conclusion that brings everything together and refers back to the context of the question. Also, be careful of things like spelling, punctuation, grammar, making sure to show all of your workings out, using correct mathematical form and making sure to use appropriate terminology and units as well. Don’t forget that the OCW part of the question is worth two marks, so you don’t want to spend too long on it, writing too much. If you do the maths part and the OCW part of the question together at the same time as you are going through the question, so that you can clearly explain what you are doing step by step, that may be the most effective way to answer the question and doing it that way that can also save you some time and helps you to form that structured response. I usually find that breaking everything down with titles really helps me structure my response. If you would like more information on the OCW criteria, have a look in the mark schemes of past papers on the questions where OCW is involved and the criteria should be there. It can sometimes be a good idea to leave the OCW question till last, so that you don't use up too much time on it, but that also depends on what the question is like. Don't forget as well, you can still pick up all the maths marks without the OCW marks, so I'm definitely not saying don't do it, but if that's the only element you happen to miss out in the exam due to time, it's only two extra marks and therefore not a massive problem.

Also make sure during the exam that you are doing things like:  

• Reading the questions thoroughly, always checking exactly what the question is asking for and reading the questions more than once to make sure that you have gained a full understanding of the question.
• Checking for words in bold in the questions, as those words can indicate very important elements of a question.
• Making sure that you are always writing down your calculations / workings out / method as you may pick up some marks for doing that.
• Making sure that you are being as accurate as possible when it comes to any graph work or any diagrams that you may need to do and make sure that you do them in pencil.
• Checking if a question requires the answer to be rounded to a certain number of decimal places or significant figures, or checking if a question requires an answer in a certain format for example if the question requires your answer to be: in certain units, in standard form, a fraction, a decimal or a percentage etc.
• Making sure that you don’t round any numbers until the final answer, if rounding the final answer is / feels necessary, otherwise your answers may become more and more inaccurate as you go along, also if you then decide to round a final answer which has lots of decimals places make sure that you still give a fair amount of decimal places and it is also good practice to note down how many decimal places you have rounded that number to as well.
• Putting units on all of your answers if appropriate.
• Using a calculator in the calculator specific exams, I know this sound obvious but sometimes it’s so easy to forget that you have a calculator available, also if you have time make sure to type in all calculations into the calculator twice to make sure you haven’t accidentally made any calculator errors, and try not to type in too much into the calculator at once, correctly break big calculations down if possible to make them more manageable so that there is less chance of making a calculator error.
• Double checking all of your answers, while also making sure that your answers seem sensible.
• Answering every question fully, even if you're not sure of the final answer, because even if you feel like you can only go so far with a question, you may still get some marks for that and you may even guess the end correctly.
• Continuing to check over the entire exam paper as many times as you can if you have spare time at the end of the exam.

And finally, if you can revise / practice leading up to the exam as much as possible, make sure that you get a good nights sleep the night before the exam and make sure you have had some food / a drink before the exam, that should all help as well! I hope all of this advice helps, and good luck for your exams!