How to Help Your Child Study For Maths Exams
When a Maths exam is coming up, telling your child to “go and revise” is not always particularly helpful. What does revising Maths actually mean?
It is also quite different from revising a content-heavy subject. Reading through a textbook, highlighting notes or watching hours of explanation videos can feel productive, but Maths is a skill. To get better at it, students need to actually retrieve information, make decisions, solve problems, make mistakes and correct them.
Research into learning consistently supports active practice, spacing learning over time and mixing different types of problems rather than repeatedly rereading material.
Here are some practical ways parents can help.
1. Start with questions, not notes
One of the best things a student can do is attempt questions before going back through all of their notes.
Give them a small selection of questions from different topics and let them try them without help.
For example:
2 fraction questions
2 algebra questions
2 percentage questions
2 geometry questions
2 graph questions
Then sort the topics into three groups:
Green: I can do this confidently.
Amber: I can mostly do this, but I make mistakes or need a reminder.
Red: I do not know how to start this.
Now they know what actually needs revising. This is much more useful than spending an hour revising a topic they already know simply because it is the first chapter in the textbook.
Testing yourself is not just a way of checking learning. Retrieval itself can strengthen later memory, which is why practice testing is consistently recommended over simply rereading material.
What parents can do: Ask, “Which questions could you not do?” rather than, “How long did you revise for?”
2. Use this order: Try → Check → Learn → Try again
When a student gets a question wrong, the answer should not simply be ticked or crossed and forgotten.
A much better process is:
Try the question properly.
Mark it.
Work out exactly where the mistake happened.
Look at a worked solution or example if needed.
Close the solution.
Redo the original question from the beginning.
Do another similar question without help.
Understanding somebody else's solution is not the same as being able to produce it yourself.
For students who genuinely do not know how to begin a topic, studying a clear worked example first can be particularly useful. Research on worked examples has found that they can reduce unnecessary cognitive load for learners who are still developing a skill.
The important part is that the worked example should then lead into independent practice, rather than becoming something the student simply copies.
3. Keep a mistake list
One of the most useful revision resources is not a beautiful set of notes.
It is a list of things the student keeps getting wrong.
For example:
My Maths mistakes
Forgetting to change the sign when moving terms in equations
Multiplying indices instead of adding them
Forgetting that percentage change is divided by the original amount
Calculator in degrees instead of radians
Giving 0.47 instead of 47%
Rounding halfway through a calculation
Forgetting units for area
Using Pythagoras when the triangle is not right-angled
This list becomes incredibly useful in the days before the exam because it is personal. It tells the student exactly what they need to watch for.
What parents can do: After practice, ask, “What mistake did you make that you don't want to make again?”
4. Mix the questions up
Students often practise Maths like this:
10 questions on expanding brackets, 10 questions on factorising, 10 questions on solving equations
That is useful while first learning a skill, but exam revision should eventually look different.
Try:
expand brackets, probability, solve an equation, area, factorise, percentages, graphs, another equation
This is called interleaving.
The important difference is that the student now has to decide which method to use.
That is exactly what happens in an exam.
If a worksheet is called Pythagoras Practice, the student already knows that every question requires Pythagoras. In an exam, nobody tells them which method the question requires.
Classroom research has found benefits from mixing different types of Maths problems instead of always practising one problem type in a block.
5. Come back to topics instead of “finishing” them
Students often say:
“I've revised fractions.”
as though fractions can now be crossed off forever. Unfortunately, memory does not work like that.
A better approach might be:
Monday: Fractions
Wednesday: Fractions again, mixed with algebra
Saturday: Two fraction questions in a mixed quiz
Next Wednesday: Fractions appear again
This is spaced practice. Rather than doing 90 minutes of one topic once, it is generally better to revisit that material across several sessions.
Studies specifically looking at school mathematics have found advantages to spreading practice over time, particularly when students are tested later rather than immediately after practising.
A 2025 meta-analysis of mathematics studies also found an overall benefit for spaced rather than massed practice.
So instead of asking:
“Have you revised algebra yet?”
try:
“When did you last practise algebra?”
6. Do some questions completely from memory
Students should occasionally remove all of the support.
No notes.
No formula sheet, unless they will have one in the exam.
No YouTube video playing beside them.
No worked example open in another tab.
Then try five questions.
This quickly shows the difference between:
“I recognise this when I see it.”
and
“I can actually do it myself.”
That difference matters enormously.
If they get stuck, that is useful information. They have just found something that needs more work.
7. Practise choosing the method
A surprisingly important part of Maths is recognising what kind of problem you are looking at.
Parents can help with this without needing to know how to solve the Maths themselves.
Take a page of mixed questions and, before solving anything, ask the student:
“What do you think you would need to do here?”
They might answer:
Pythagoras
simultaneous equations
percentage change
factorising
sine rule
differentiation
They do not even need to calculate the answer yet.
This practises a skill students often struggle with in exams: identifying the method from the information given.
8. Make them explain one question out loud
Ask your child to choose one problem and teach it to you.
They should explain:
what the question is asking
why they chose that method
what each step is doing
how they know their answer is reasonable
You do not need to be good at Maths for this to work.
In fact, saying:
“Why did you do that?”
can be incredibly useful. If a student can explain their reasoning clearly, rather than saying “that's just what you do”, it is usually a much stronger sign that they understand the mathematics.
Self-explanation is also one of the learning techniques investigated in educational psychology research, with evidence that explaining reasoning can support learning when used appropriately.
9. Stop watching videos once they understand the explanation
Videos can be excellent when a student has forgotten a method.
But there is a trap:
watch video → understand video → feel confident → watch another video
The student has spent 45 minutes “doing Maths” without actually solving anything.
A better rule is:
Watch one example. Pause. Close it. Do three questions.
If those three questions go well, move on.
If they do not, return to the explanation.
Videos should support practice, not replace it.
10. Do past-paper questions before doing full past papers
A full past paper can be overwhelming if there are still major gaps.
Instead, students can initially use past papers as a question bank.
For example:
Today:
Questions 1, 4, 8 and 12 from Paper 1
Questions 3, 7 and 10 from Paper 2
Mark those carefully and fix the mistakes.
As the exam gets closer, move towards full papers under exam conditions.
This means past papers serve two different purposes:
Earlier revision: learning and finding gaps.Closer to the exam: practising exam technique, timing and stamina.
11. When marking, don't just look at the final answer
A wrong Maths answer can come from very different problems.
For example:
Concept mistake: They do not understand how percentages work.
Method mistake: They chose the wrong formula.
Algebra mistake: Their method was correct but they rearranged incorrectly.
Arithmetic mistake: 7 × 8 somehow became 54.
Calculator mistake: They typed the calculation incorrectly.
Reading mistake: The question asked for kilometres and they gave metres.
Exam technique mistake: They rounded too early or did not show enough working.
These require completely different solutions.
Simply saying “you need to practise percentages” may not help if the real problem was entering the calculation incorrectly into a calculator.
Encourage students to identify why each mark was lost.
12. Redo wrong questions a few days later
Correcting a question immediately is useful.
But there is one more step that is even better: come back to it later.
Keep the questions that caused problems.
Two or three days later, give the student the same question again without showing them their previous solution.
Can they now do it independently?
If yes, great.
If not, the topic probably needs another round of practice.
This combines retrieval and spacing rather than allowing the correction to disappear as soon as the exercise is finished.
13. Include easy questions
Revision should not consist entirely of the hardest questions in the textbook.
Students need fluency with the basics too.
For example, an older student might be working on quite advanced Maths but still lose marks because they are slow or inaccurate with:
fractions
negative numbers
rearranging equations
percentages
powers
basic algebra
A useful revision session often contains:
a few straightforward questions + several standard exam questions + one or two harder questions.
The aim is both accuracy and problem solving.
14. Make calculator practice part of revision
For calculator exams, knowing the Maths is only half of the job. Students should practise using the calculator they will actually take into the exam.
They should know how to:
enter fractions
use brackets correctly
use powers and roots
work with scientific notation
switch between degrees and radians when required
use trigonometric functions
find previous answers
use statistical functions where relevant
check whether an answer has accidentally been entered incorrectly
A student discovering how to use an important calculator function during the exam is already too late.
15. Occasionally practise under proper exam conditions
Eventually students need to practise the performance itself.
That means:
a fixed amount of time
no phone
no notes
only the equipment allowed in the real exam
no checking the mark scheme halfway through
completing questions even when they feel unsure
Then mark it afterwards.
The score is useful, but the analysis is more useful.
Ask:
Which topics lost marks?
Which mistakes were avoidable?
Which questions took too long?
Were there questions they actually knew how to do but panicked on?
Did they leave anything blank?
That becomes the focus of the next round of revision.
16. Don't let “I don't know” end the question
One habit I encourage students to develop is to avoid leaving a Maths question completely blank.
Even when they are stuck, ask:
What information have I been given?
What am I trying to find?
What topic does this look like?
Is there a formula that might help?
Can I draw a diagram?
Can I work out one part of it?
In many Maths exams, marks are awarded for correct method and working, not only for reaching the final answer.
Learning how to start an unfamiliar problem is therefore part of exam preparation too.
So what should a 45-minute Maths revision session actually look like?
Here is one example:
5 minutes: Five quick questions from older topics, without notes.
15 minutes: Practise one weaker topic. Look at a worked example if necessary, then complete questions independently.
15 minutes: Mixed exam questions from several different topics.
5 minutes: Mark the work carefully and correct mistakes.
5 minutes: Write down mistakes or topics that need to come back in the next revision session.
That is 45 minutes of actual Maths.
Not 45 minutes making a revision timetable. Not 45 minutes highlighting a textbook. Not 45 minutes watching somebody else solve Maths.
The student is thinking, retrieving, solving, checking and correcting.
And that is where the learning happens.
The most useful thing parents can do
You do not need to relearn algebra or understand trigonometry to support your child with Maths.
Instead of asking:
“Have you studied?”
try asking:
“What questions did you do?”
“What did you get wrong?”
“Have you tried that question again without looking at the answer?”
“What topic are you going to come back to in a few days?”
“Can you explain that one to me?”
Good Maths revision is not really about how many hours a student spends sitting at a desk.
It is about what their brain is being asked to do while they are there.
Goodluck!
Ashleigh, at Miss IB Maths
Comments