It is impossible to study maths properly by just reading and listening. To study maths you have to roll up your sleeves and actually solve some problems.  The more you practice answering maths problems, the better. Each problem has its own characteristics and it’s important to have solved it in numerous ways before tackling the exam. There is no escaping this reality, to do well in a Maths exam you need to have solved a LOT of mathematical problems beforehand.

When you’re practising with these problems, it’s important to work through the process for each solution. If you have made any mistakes, you should review them and understand where your problem-solving skills let you down. Understanding how you approached the problem and where you went wrong is a great way of becoming stronger and avoiding the same mistakes in the future.

Do not try to memorise the processes. This is counter-productive. It is much better and rewarding in the long-run to focus on understanding the process and logic that is involved. This will help you understand how you should approach such problems in the future.

Sometimes you can get stuck trying to solve part of a maths problem and find it difficult to move on to the next stage.  It’s common for many students to skip this question and continue on to the next. You should avoid doing this and instead spend time trying to understand the process of solving the problem. Once you have grasped an understanding of the initial problem, you can use this as a stepping stone to progress to the remainder of the question.

As much as possible, try to apply real-world problems when approaching maths. Maths can be very abstract sometimes so looking for a practical application can help change your perspective and assimilate ideas differently.

Probability, for example, can be used in everyday life to predict the outcome of something happening and determine whether you want to take a risk such as if you should buy a lottery ticket or gamble.