Stupid Mistakes

by rrusczyk, Mar 16, 2007, 3:00 AM

I've posted this a few times before, but after all the disappointment I'm seeing surrounding stupid mistakes on the AIME, I'll post it again.

This article is how I finally beat the stupid mistake bug. I'd have one piece of paper per problem, and write insanely neatly. This would help prevent careless mistakes, and made it very, very easy to check my work. I'm not a neat person by nature - I've pretty much been the messiest person in every office I've ever worked in. But I'll bet virtually no one has scratch work as nicely done as mine was the year I aced the AIME.

So, for those of you that have a next year, try it. Use one piece of paper per problem. Slow down a little bit when you're working the problem (and slow down a lot when you're reading it). Stay organized in your work, and you'll stay organized in your thinking . . .

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that method usually helps me make consistent (but not good) scores.

by now a ranger, Mar 16, 2007, 3:22 AM

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I try that method sometimes...depends on the test. Some tests it falls apart before I finish the first problem, other tests I can keep it up the entire time.

by Elemennop, Mar 16, 2007, 3:31 AM

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This method has allowed me to make a total of one mistake on the AIME in 2 years (and 22 problems answered), and that mistake was on a problem that I brute forced, so that I deserved to get it wrong anyways.

Additionally, I am not a very fast worker, yet this still seems to work, so I definitely recommend this to anyone.

EDIT: It has also caused me to have AMC scores that deviate by less than 14 points (okay they are low compared to everyone else on AoPS but being consistently 120ish is good enough for me) and AIME scores that deviate by less than 1 question.

by JSteinhardt, Mar 16, 2007, 3:51 AM

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Worked well for me; 0 careless mistakes on AMC, 1 on AIME in 2 years.

by yisun88, Mar 16, 2007, 7:00 AM

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It's worked decently well for me. I didn't officially use it on the AIME this year, but I used the general outline of using a page per problem. I generally use it for the AMC. I've made one mistake in two years (3 tests). With the AIME, the worst mistakes I've made are misbubbling/copying errors, which have been one per year. Though yeah, it really falls apart alot of the time for contests with alot of questions, like Mu Alpha Theta. Checking is obviously unimportant there.

by Pakman2012, Mar 16, 2007, 2:23 PM

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maybe i should use scratch paper

(aka 4 stupid careless mistakes in mathcounts states that prevented me getting to nats -ugh-ugh)

what do you suggest doing if you have 4 more years to take aime as far as studying goes and trying to get like a 12 in senior year at least?

jorian

by jhredsox, Mar 16, 2007, 5:43 PM

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I heartily agree that the "Stop Making Stupid Mistakes" article hosted on the AoPS site is very valuable. It is crucial to read the question more than once before working a complicated math problem.

by tokenadult, Mar 16, 2007, 8:16 PM

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I used the "one question <=> one sheet" approach my senior year, and it worked quite well. I also stopped every few problems to check my previous work. Not only did I avoid careless errors, but it was a nice break for my brain. My only careless mistake that year was due to leaving out one of the steps in the article: I failed to check my answer against what was asked for, and gave the diameter of a circle instead of the radius (or vice versa).

by Sly Si, Mar 16, 2007, 10:49 PM

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I followed all those organizational techniques and I got a lot less dumb mistakes than I usually do.

by tjhance, Mar 17, 2007, 8:01 PM

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I did this on my ARML tryout...it worked very well. Except the problems were really easy, and they were like 2-3 liners...

Well I didn't do this on the AIME, I still probably would have made the $\log_{\sqrt{2}1$ is not an integer mistake, since I just flat out forgot that.

Nevertheless this the thing is great.

by 13375P34K43V312, Mar 17, 2007, 11:36 PM