How to Check Your Add Math Answers

Checking is where careful students recover the marks rushed ones leave behind, and it doesn’t mean redoing every question. A few targeted checks, each taking seconds, catch the specific errors 0606 punishes. The trick is checking differently, not just repeating the same working (which tends to repeat the same mistake).

Substitute solutions back

The single most powerful check: put your answer back into the original equation. Solved a quadratic and got $x = 2, 3$? Substitute both, they should satisfy the original. This instantly catches sign errors and arithmetic slips, and it’s far faster than re-solving. For simultaneous equations, check the pair satisfies both equations.

Test for reasonableness

Ask whether the answer makes sense in size and sign:

• A length or area can’t be negative.
• A probability or ratio should be sensible in scale.
• A trig value must lie between $-1$ and $1$; if your $\cos\theta = 2$, something’s wrong (often a mode slip or algebra error).

A quick sanity check on magnitude catches misplaced decimals and calculator-mode disasters.

Confirm you answered the question

Many lost marks aren’t wrong maths, they’re the wrong answer to the question:

• Did you give both coordinates when a point was asked?
• Is the answer in the required form, exact when it says exact, the demanded $ax + by + c = 0$, 3 s.f. when specified?
• Did you find what was asked (the area, not the $x$-value; the sum, not the term)?

Rereading the question against your answer is a ten-second check that recovers marks lost purely to misreading.

Recompute a key value a different way

For a crucial calculation, redo it by a different route if you can, a different order of operations, or estimating to confirm the scale. Repeating the exact same keystrokes tends to reproduce the same slip; a different method is a genuine check.

Build checking into your timing

Reserve the last few minutes for checking the questions you were unsure about and scanning for blanks. Don’t check everything, target the doubtful answers and the high-mark questions. A specialist can show your child which checks catch their particular errors, part of what the trial class diagnoses. Message us on WhatsApp to book.