Is there anything we can do to minimise silly errors?

[Aurelian]

I think one thing which really helps is to be very vigorous about your notation and presentation of working; I found this tends to minimise silly mistakes. Don't just write down "n = 20/32" when finding the amount of oxygen in 20.0g of molecular oxygen, write down:

n(O2) = m(O2)/M(O2) = 20g/32.0g/mol = 0.625mol

Additionally, note the inclusion of units during all stages of working; you'll know you've made a really silly arithmetic error if your units don't work out!

Other than that, make sure to make a list of mistakes you commonly make (e.g., I always used to lazily put M(H2) = 1g/mol instead of 2g/mol), and even if you don't have time to drill it into you to not make the mistakes to begin with, if you have time at the end and know what your common mistakes are, it will make your 'checking over' tie a lot more efficient.

highlighters. these bad boys are SO important.
Use a different colour for different parts of info. For example you might use one colour to highlight all info for a particular substance (mol, conc, titre) and then another colour for dilution and maybe another for the units you have to put it in. Not only does it make things easier for you to track info but its also a huge time saver... well for me it is.

Be careful about this - don't highlight anything on your actual written answers; when the papers are scanned, anything highlighted just turns black! Don't highlight your final answer to make it stand out or anything! Haha.

[thushan]

I think one thing which really helps is to be very vigorous about your notation and presentation of working; I found this tends to minimise silly mistakes. Don't just write down "n = 20/32" when finding the amount of oxygen in 20.0g of molecular oxygen, write down:

n(O2) = m(O2)/M(O2) = 20g/32.0g/mol = 0.625mol

Additionally, note the inclusion of units during all stages of working; you'll know you've made a really silly arithmetic error if your units don't work out!

Other than that, make sure to make a list of mistakes you commonly make (e.g., I always used to lazily put M(H2) = 1g/mol instead of 2g/mol), and even if you don't have time to drill it into you to not make the mistakes to begin with, if you have time at the end and know what your common mistakes are, it will make your 'checking over' tie a lot more efficient.

highlighters. these bad boys are SO important.
Use a different colour for different parts of info. For example you might use one colour to highlight all info for a particular substance (mol, conc, titre) and then another colour for dilution and maybe another for the units you have to put it in. Not only does it make things easier for you to track info but its also a huge time saver... well for me it is.

Be careful about this - don't highlight anything on your actual written answers; when the papers are scanned, anything highlighted just turns black! Don't highlight your final answer to make it stand out or anything! Haha.

No it doesn't make it turn black, the highlight comes out as normal - I had an inspection of a scan-out of my Unit 3 physics exam script and it was normal yellow highlighting!

[Aurelian]

No it doesn't make it turn black, the highlight comes out as normal - I had an inspection of a scan-out of my Unit 3 physics exam script and it was normal yellow highlighting!

Hmm, are you sure? I quite distinctly remembering our teacher tell us that VCAA had told teachers to tell students not to highlight for the above reason.

[nisha]

No it doesn't make it turn black, the highlight comes out as normal - I had an inspection of a scan-out of my Unit 3 physics exam script and it was normal yellow highlighting!

Hmm, are you sure? I quite distinctly remembering our teacher tell us that VCAA had told teachers to tell students not to highlight for the above reason.

Papers are scanned and corrected on the computer. For this reason, highlighting comes out normally, not black.

[charmanderp]

I think one thing which really helps is to be very vigorous about your notation and presentation of working; I found this tends to minimise silly mistakes. Don't just write down "n = 20/32" when finding the amount of oxygen in 20.0g of molecular oxygen, write down:

n(O2) = m(O2)/M(O2) = 20g/32.0g/mol = 0.625mol

Additionally, note the inclusion of units during all stages of working; you'll know you've made a really silly arithmetic error if your units don't work out!

Other than that, make sure to make a list of mistakes you commonly make (e.g., I always used to lazily put M(H2) = 1g/mol instead of 2g/mol), and even if you don't have time to drill it into you to not make the mistakes to begin with, if you have time at the end and know what your common mistakes are, it will make your 'checking over' tie a lot more efficient.

highlighters. these bad boys are SO important.
Use a different colour for different parts of info. For example you might use one colour to highlight all info for a particular substance (mol, conc, titre) and then another colour for dilution and maybe another for the units you have to put it in. Not only does it make things easier for you to track info but its also a huge time saver... well for me it is.

Be careful about this - don't highlight anything on your actual written answers; when the papers are scanned, anything highlighted just turns black! Don't highlight your final answer to make it stand out or anything! Haha.

No it doesn't make it turn black, the highlight comes out as normal - I had an inspection of a scan-out of my Unit 3 physics exam script and it was normal yellow highlighting!

Just curious Thushan, did you get your mark changed?

[thushan]

I think one thing which really helps is to be very vigorous about your notation and presentation of working; I found this tends to minimise silly mistakes. Don't just write down "n = 20/32" when finding the amount of oxygen in 20.0g of molecular oxygen, write down:

n(O2) = m(O2)/M(O2) = 20g/32.0g/mol = 0.625mol

Additionally, note the inclusion of units during all stages of working; you'll know you've made a really silly arithmetic error if your units don't work out!

Other than that, make sure to make a list of mistakes you commonly make (e.g., I always used to lazily put M(H2) = 1g/mol instead of 2g/mol), and even if you don't have time to drill it into you to not make the mistakes to begin with, if you have time at the end and know what your common mistakes are, it will make your 'checking over' tie a lot more efficient.

highlighters. these bad boys are SO important.
Use a different colour for different parts of info. For example you might use one colour to highlight all info for a particular substance (mol, conc, titre) and then another colour for dilution and maybe another for the units you have to put it in. Not only does it make things easier for you to track info but its also a huge time saver... well for me it is.

Be careful about this - don't highlight anything on your actual written answers; when the papers are scanned, anything highlighted just turns black! Don't highlight your final answer to make it stand out or anything! Haha.

No it doesn't make it turn black, the highlight comes out as normal - I had an inspection of a scan-out of my Unit 3 physics exam script and it was normal yellow highlighting!

Just curious Thushan, did you get your mark changed?

Nah. I saw that I got jibbed, but the thing was that the marking scheme did not fit my answer, so yeah no point getting marked changed just to get 1 mark back

[charmanderp]

Fair enough. You still got a 50 though so I guess there wasn't too much harm done. Unless it's left you short of a Premier's Award?

(Note: it says 'edited by Thushan' because in my idiocy i clicked on 'modify' instead of 'reply' - stupid me --> thushan)

[Surgeon]

I think one thing which really helps is to be very vigorous about your notation and presentation of working; I found this tends to minimise silly mistakes. Don't just write down "n = 20/32" when finding the amount of oxygen in 20.0g of molecular oxygen, write down:

n(O2) = m(O2)/M(O2) = 20g/32.0g/mol = 0.625mol

Additionally, note the inclusion of units during all stages of working; you'll know you've made a really silly arithmetic error if your units don't work out!

Other than that, make sure to make a list of mistakes you commonly make (e.g., I always used to lazily put M(H2) = 1g/mol instead of 2g/mol), and even if you don't have time to drill it into you to not make the mistakes to begin with, if you have time at the end and know what your common mistakes are, it will make your 'checking over' tie a lot more efficient.

highlighters. these bad boys are SO important.
Use a different colour for different parts of info. For example you might use one colour to highlight all info for a particular substance (mol, conc, titre) and then another colour for dilution and maybe another for the units you have to put it in. Not only does it make things easier for you to track info but its also a huge time saver... well for me it is.

Be careful about this - don't highlight anything on your actual written answers; when the papers are scanned, anything highlighted just turns black! Don't highlight your final answer to make it stand out or anything! Haha.

No it doesn't make it turn black, the highlight comes out as normal - I had an inspection of a scan-out of my Unit 3 physics exam script and it was normal yellow highlighting!

Just curious Thushan, did you get your mark changed?

Nah. I saw that I got jibbed, but the thing was that the marking scheme did not fit my answer, so yeah no point getting marked changed just to get 1 mark back

You could have gotten an ATAR of 100, Thushan!