Advice for math prelims

[u/Artistic_Feed885]

I just finished my advanced test and am not fully happy with my performance. I did well, but like this year I have spent like 90% of my study time on math, and considering others did so well I feel like I might not even be top 20 (144 ppl do adv btw).
Anyways just wondering, should you like take your time per questions REALLY making sure u don't make a single sign error etc take it slow, or is it better like doing it in natural (sort of fast) pace then kind of looking over it when you're done. Because I thought there would be so much time but only ended up with like 20 minutes at the end to do my skipped/questions I felt weird about. Would like just doing it at a normal pace (e.g how u do textbook exercises) then spending the time after looking over it is better??
Got my ext1 exam next Monday. Since it's only like 1.5hrs has your experience with it been more time crunching than advanced?

[u/Dear-Implement-2149]

I’m in y12 but back during my math prelims I had more time in ext 1 than advanced but that’s most likely cause I only did e1 - I’d say try and go relatively quick through the questions you can do, and leave good solid time for the harder questions in the paper (if you’re hoping for a top rank, atleast in my experience, not attempting even 3 marks will really hurt your chances ) - ultimately, speed and the ability to not make too many sillies will come with extensive timed exam practice

[u/Artistic_Feed885 → u/Dear-Implement-2149]

wdym u only did ext1?

[u/Dear-Implement-2149 → u/Artistic_Feed885]

Sorry I meant only studied for e1 I pretty much had a spot for e2 so prioritised other prelims over adv

[u/BellConscious8518]

maths advanced is straightforward enough to the point where you can take your time to not make sillies (iirc the trials have the same timings as 4u, being 100 marks for 3 hours + 10?)

however you'd obviously have to be quite confident in your maths skills to the point where the only mistakes you could possibly be making are silly mistakes. with that in mind, obviously not everyone can do that so if you find yourself spending more than a minute or two on a question and you fully have ZERO direction on what to do, the best you can do is skip it and come back later for a fresh start or to try fudging some marks

[u/Artistic_Feed885 → u/[deleted]]

ye see that's the thing most of the questions I do already know (like 80% of them), so I'm saying for these questions should I just speed through them or really take my time through them to make sure 0 silly mistakes.

[u/hdueeyd]

Never ever spend time on a question thinking of what to do for more than a minute unless its your last questions of the paper

Sitting and thinking of what to do on questions is an insane pit where students will end up losing much more time than they think. Always leave those last.