A calculator paper plan that saves minutes

Most students lose more marks to time and panic on the calculator paper than to difficulty.

First pass: everything you can do

Go through the paper answering only the questions you recognise immediately. Do not stop on anything. This banks easy marks fast and builds momentum.

Second pass: the rest

Return to the difficult questions with time in hand. Write down what is being asked, then the first step you can do.

Calculator habits worth practising

• Use brackets for negative numbers and fractions.
• Store intermediate answers in memory rather than rounding them.
• Check mode: degrees, not radians.
• Write the full expression before pressing equals, so the method is visible.

Last five minutes

Check units, check rounding instructions, and make sure no question has been left blank. Three marks are regularly recovered in that final five minutes.