How to stop making silly mistakes

homerdog
Sun, 01 Mar 2020 15:36:49 +0000

@yearstogo Thanks! I’ve told her, especially for the questions she reads and immediately knows how to do, to take a breath and make sure she’s being very deliberate in her calculations. I know S19 used to tell us that he would talk to himself in his head as he did work like this just to keep him focused.

And, yes, she kind of knows it’s normal. First, we picked the wrong test (ACT) and she took two of those after studying on and off for five months. We initially didn’t choose the SAT because, when I gave her both tests at the beginning of last summer, she thought ACT was easier and her score was a bit better but it just didn’t improve enough and she hated the timing. In Dec, I had her try an SAT and the score was higher than her two official ACTs and now she’s focused on that. Like most kids, she also has a slate of hard classes and a lot of ECs and she just wants this part done. Many of her friends have already hit high scores so she’s dealing with that.