How To Revise National 5 Maths

Every National 5 Maths Student is Unique

As a full time private Maths tutor with ten years’ experience I’ve often been asked how to revise National 5 Maths. Since each student has different needs I know there’s no magic formula for success. However, my experience has taught me the most effective strategies students can employ to maximise their chances. In this short article I’d like to share some ‘best practices’ for how to revise National 5 Maths.

Revision Strategy

Maths is a skill which needs to be practiced. However, it’s also important to spend time trying to understand topics and techniques, rather than just ‘doing’ them. The deeper you can understand a topic the easier it’ll be to recall the techniques and the better able you’ll be to adapt to question variations. There are three parts to revising National 5 Maths – understanding topics, practising common questions, practicing variations on questions (problem solving).

Understanding Topics

Maths classes tend to move quickly from one topic to the next. It’s not always easy to get a full understanding of things before you move on. But you should make an attempt to understand before you start practicing techniques – otherwise it would be difficult to answer questions which aren’t exactly the same as you’ve seen before. To understand topics read through your class notes asking yourself ‘what is this topic or technique about?’, ‘what is the point in it?’. If your class notes are messy and not easy to follow we have concise NATIONAL 5 MATHS COURSE NOTES available.

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Practice Common Questions

One of the biggest challenges that National 5 Maths students face is associating techniques to particular question types. It doesn’t matter how competent you are with a technique – if it isn’t answering the actual question you won’t get the marks! If you want to know how to pass National 5 Maths, one key will be getting very familiar with common questions. If you look at NATIONAL 5 MATHS PAST EXAM QUESTIONS BY TOPIC you see that essentially the same questions come up every year but in a slightly different form. You can use our NATIONAL 5 MATHS WORKSHEETS to practice common questions for each topic.

Practice Question Variations

National 5 Maths students often report that they struggled to interpret some questions on an assessment – ‘I just didn’t know what it was asking me!’ is a common complaint. I sympathise with them because it’s not easy to adapt what you know to questions you’ve never seen before. However, the more you challenge yourself with such questions the more you’ll get tuned into how to approach them. In general even problem solving questions will use a standard technique but just in a slightly different way. You should use NATIONAL 5 MATHS EXAM PAPERS to look for more elaborate questions. You can also use NATIONAL 5 MATHS EXAM QUESTIONS BY TOPIC to look for variations on standard questions.

National 5 Maths is an Algebra Course

The National 5 Maths course contains around 20 topics but it’s essentially an algebra course. Even topics that don’t initially seem to be algebra-based often turn into algebra – for example Pythagoras Theorem is to do with triangles right? Wrong, it’s about solving an equation i.e. doing algebra. To be successful in National 5 Maths you have to be competent in algebra. Students should practice Algebraic Operations, Equations and Inequations, Simultaneous Equations, and Rearranging Formulas using our PRACTICE QUESTION WORKSHEETS. If you’re unsure about any of these techniques you can watch my ALGEBRA instructional videos.