Estimate First: The 15-Second Check That Catches Calculator Slips
Calculators don’t make mistakes, but fingers do. A missed bracket or a misplaced decimal point turns a right method into a wildly wrong answer, and under mock pressure students write it down without blinking. The fix takes about 15 seconds, and it is one of the easiest habits for a parent to help with, even if the topic is rusty. Before they press any buttons, ask: “Roughly what should this come out as?” Why the estimate bites in mock season On calculator papers, students trust the display completely. Typing 3.2 ÷ 0.4 as 3.2 ÷ 4, or forgetting brackets around a fraction’s top line, gives a confident wrong number. A rough estimate first shows straight away when the answer is out by a factor of ten or more. That is why November mocks hurt on these marks. The method can be right. The typing is not. And the wrong number still goes down as the answer. The 15-second estimate Before pressing any buttons: round each number to one significant figure and work out a ballpark in your...
