101 Common mistakes you must avoid this year

Remember that one time when it was the night before your assignment is due and you forgot to save the document? Or when you were sitting in that maths test wondering why you finished a good 15 minutes before everyone else only to discover after the exam that the test was double sided?

We’ve all copped stupid mistakes like these at one time or another, and hey, they made for some classic banter amongst your mates. But while that may have been a good laugh in year 10, come year 12 where things actually start to matter so you can’t really afford to throw away marks.

Although you might think that in a room full of 95+ ATAR’s we’ve never been guilty of making any silly errors, the truth is that most of us are pretty lacking in the common sense department.

So between us, we had a good laugh about all the times we’ve been left thinking our life could be the next Series of Unfortunate Events book.

So i’ve put together a list of 101 stupid mistakes that we’ve made, so you don’t have to:

1. Misreading the question
2. Telling yourself you can do it tomorrow
3. Getting the due date wrong
4. Thinking the exam sheet is single sided
5. Attempting past papers and not marking them
6. Doing the wrong section of the paper…one that your school actually didn’t do
7. Forgetting to save your work
8. Forgetting to backup your work
9. Studying in chronological order not priority order
10. Thinking that something “won’t take that long”
11. Never reading the syllabus
12. Not sticking to the word limit
13. Disregarding the keywords of the question
14. Not checking your answers
15. Not looking at the clock
16. Not allocating enough time per question
17. Forgetting to bring a spare pen
18. Writing too much or too little
19. Making study notes and never returning to them
20. Not making a copy of handwritten stuff
21. Leaving questions unanswered
22. Forgetting to return to unanswered questions
23. Forgetting to write your name/student number on your work
24. Answering multiple choice questions in the wrong space
25. Drinking too much water before your exam
26. Not drinking enough water before your exam
27. Writing excessively long notes
28. Using other people’s notes not making your own
29. Not putting enough effort into early assessments
30. Forgetting to convert your units in maths/science
31. “Refer to Source A”…forgetting to refer to source A
32. “Refer to Source B”…referring to Source A
33. Forgetting to turn your phone on silent before an exam
34. Deciding to pull an all nighter the night before an exam
35. Getting the wrong time for an exam
36. Doing 9 units
37. Only studying when you have an assessment coming up
38. Not checking the prerequisites for Uni courses
39. Only using one method of studying
40. Not talking to your teachers outside of class
41. Forgetting to put in your UAC applications
42. Not getting someone to proof read your essays
43. Leaving an assessment till the night before
44. Leaving an assessment till the morning of
45. Thinking that group study is ineffective
46. Cramming too much information to memorise
47. Panicking during or before an exam
48. Arriving late to your exam
49. Not making the most of reading time
50. Jumping straight into writing without planning
51. Having illegible handwriting
52. Not showing your working out
53. Thinking that reading the textbook counts as study
54. Not allowing time for a conclusion
55. Making basic spelling/grammar mistakes
56. Making basic calculation errors
57. Ignoring the trends of past papers
58. Having a cheeky look at your neighbour’s response*
59. Leaving the exam room early
60. Not spending equal time on all your subjects
61. Only studying for ‘fun’ or ‘easy’ topics
62. Ignoring the journal for major works
63. Thinking that highlighting is effective study
64. Letting yourself be distracted by other people in the exam room
65. Not practicing handwriting your responses
66. Not practicing in timed conditions
67. Setting unrealistic goals
68. Never attempting a full practice paper in one go until the exam
69. Spending too much time procrastinating by formatting
70. Thinking you can stick to an unrealistic study schedule
71. Procrastinating by making ‘to do lists’
72. Letting one bad mark stop you from putting in effort
73. Getting too caught up on ranks to help others
74. Thinking you have the ability to predict possible questions
75. Not structuring your response
76. Writing essays without an argument
77. Not supporting yourself with enough quotes/evidence
78. Making errors with the order of operations
79. Not adapting your memorised response
80. Not making the most of your study periods
81. Putting too much pressure on yourself
82. Not taking sufficient breaks
83. Misinterpreting the BOSTES key verb
84. Providing multiple answers hoping one is correct
85. Using big words you don’t know the meaning of
86. Including irrelevant information for the sake of it
87. Not using a pencil and ruler for diagrams in Science
88. Incorrectly rounding significant figures
89. Ignoring the weighting of assessments
90. Not watching HSC Hub videos – sorry, I had to.
91. Going off on a tangent in essays
92. Letting what other people have done freak you out
93. Taking easy questions for granted
94. Not moving on after a bad exam
95. Not planning your study around your exam timetable
96. Second-guessing your initial response
97. Dwelling on a question you can’t answer
98. Only looking at the mark and not reading feedback
99. Answering a question twice
100. Adding up how many marks you think you got
101. Not numbering your writing books correctly

*This one can actually get you in serious trouble!