How to Take This Test
25 questions in 15 minutes is about 36 seconds each, the pace of the real Tier 1 Maths section. At that speed you need the quick routes as well as the methods: seeing that a nested root ends in a whole number, or that a sum of cubes sits over its matching bottom. The questions jump between topics as they do in a real shift.
- Do it in one go with a 15-minute timer, no pauses and no notes.
- A right answer gets +2, a wrong one −0.50 and a blank 0.
- A long simplification can eat the time of three short ones, so leave it and come back if time is left.
- Check answers and read explanations only when the time is up.
Your score. Take 2 for each right answer and subtract 0.5 for each wrong one; the total is out of 50. So 19 right, 4 wrong and 2 left blank is 38 − 2 = 36.
| Score out of 50 | What to do next |
|---|---|
| 40 or more | You are ready on this chapter. Use the PYQ Practice Sets to keep the speed, and reread the working of any question you got right by a slow route. |
| 30 to 39.5 | The methods are fine but marks are leaking. See whether the misses were order slips ("of", the bar, a minus before a bracket), sign errors with surds or wrong roots, and redo that section's quiz. |
| 20 to 29.5 | You know most methods but use them slowly. Go through Shortcuts & Speed Methods, mainly the identity shortcuts, cube roots from the last digit and conjugates, then Practice Sets 1 and 2, and retake this test after a few days. |
| Below 20 | Go back to the six topic sections, from BODMAS and Simplification to Simplifying with Identities and Approximation, and do each section's quiz before more timed tests. |
More than 3 wrong usually means rushing; in this chapter that is often a sign lost under a bar or a root left in the bottom. On guessing: in Tier 1 a blind guess is very slightly in your favour on average, and once you can strike out even one option a guess is clearly worth taking. Chapter 0 shows the numbers.