Helloo I have a question regarding more so how to think about questions/apply your knowledge/formulas:
Usually I struggle during practice questions and doubt my answer because it looks so absurd. I feel like it's easy to second guess myself in maths. This has been the downfall of my marks (average 60%) and once I check the solutions it all makes sense - but I still can't seem to apply it in the process of finding the answers. D:
What are some ways I can fix this before my 2u exam? (I've been doing past papers too)
Thanks!!
Second guessing can be quite normal, and sometimes put you back on track. When you should act on it, however, is usually not when you actually
start doubting it. Unless you're fully confident that you know the correct method, you should leave that question for now and complete what's left on the paper, because it's all about
mark maximisation. Keep on trying and attempting all the remaining questions, and then once you feel as though you can't do any more (paper too hard by then, time etc.) go back to what the question you were concerned about.
It's easy to look at a question and realise "how" it's done, but it can be far more difficult understanding
WHY that approach was taken. When you first started doing past papers, this was not problematic, as you didn't need to develop any sense on intuition on what method to use. Now that you have done a fair few, you need to consider
why. Instead of "how is this question done?", be more focused on "how was this one of the many correct approaches, if not the only correct approach to tackling it?". Also, remember that there can be multiple ways of doing the same question.
Because the questions themselves tend to differ but involve the exact same methods/formulae/techniques, look out for any key characteristics as well. E.g. in geometry, use all key details but also try to "see" the theorem. With quadratics, the discriminant can appear at some really weird places. If you need guidance on this, provide further examples of questions with their solutions and explain where the confusion lies.
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