Strategy for preventing careless errors (other than timing)?

Question

What dialogue do you go through in your head to ensure you aren't leaving out details? Do you have a set process that you walk through to make sure you aren't leaving out anything?

I'm finding that I can get down the overall concept of quant problems, but often leave out a crucial detail at the end.

A couple examples: 
-Solving for x, but the question was asking for x/2
-Solving a complex geometry problem, but forgetting a detail and end up solving for twice the amount they are looking for because I didn't visualize properly (maybe i visualized a circle instead of a sphere)

BrentGMATPrepNow · Answer

If silly mistakes are hurting your score, then it's important that you identify and categorize these mistakes. Some examples might include: - sloppy writing causes a 7 to mysteriously turn into a 1 - you forget that a question is an EXCEPT question. - you fail to notice crucial information such as x is an integer or w < 0 . - you calculate Pat’s current age when the question asked for the Pat’s age 5 years from now . - and so on Once you have identified the types of mistakes that YOU typically make, you'll be able to spot situations/questions in which you're prone to making errors in which case you can be extra diligent. That said, many students (including me) benefit from a strategy of reading the question, determining the answer, then re-reading the question to ensure it was interpreted correctly the first time, and then submitting a response. It's time consuming, but helps fend off silly mistakes. I write about this and other strategies in the following article: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/articles/avo ... teaks-gmat Cheers, Brent

ccooley · Answer

GMATPrepNow's answer is great - here are my thoughts: 1. Know your errors. Not everybody makes the same careless mistakes. This means, stop just saying to yourself 'oh, that was a careless mistake' - dig deep! What about your thinking, writing, organization, etc. caused you to make that specific error? 2. As soon as you see a pattern in the errors you make (for instance, they're all due to poor handwriting, a lot of them relate to solving for the wrong thing, they all seem to happen on Data Sufficiency, etc.) - make a pencil to paper plan to fix them. This can take two forms: either you do more practice before test day (for instance, if you often multiply incorrectly, do times table drills) or you can do something differently as you work on test day (for instance, if you often solve for the wrong thing, you can make yourself write down what you're solving for before you begin.) 3. Write more than you would naturally. Work on your handwriting, too. You don't waste time by writing neatly, you waste time by taking the wrong approach and having to go back and fix things. 4. Think in 'math terms' - this is a GRE article but also applies to the GMAT: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gre/blog/ ... r-lexicon/

Strategy for preventing careless errors (other than timing)?

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