Mistakes with trivial arithmetic (1 Viewer)

[大きい男]

Let's say in a 3 mark question I have a single line at the end in which I (incorrectly) write something like:

k/2 = 1/3
k = 1/6

I know that mental arithmetic is critical to mathematics, but is this something that should cause me to lose a whole mark, in an exam that was done under considerable time pressure?

 

[Trebla]

Depends on the marking criteria. Sometimes there may be leniency for harder questions, but in most cases markers would need to consider whether it is fair to award the same marks for a student who makes that error versus one who does not make that error.

 

[fan96]

Usually I'd expect a mistake like this to only incur a 1/2 mark penalty.

If it was really really minor (e.g. you wrote the wrong units) then you might even get away for free.

 

[quickoats]

It probably depends on the question itself - if it's pretty simple, then one mark lost out of 3 is justifiable (usually schools don't do half marks).

If you messed up the arithmetic half way through a question, and continued on with full and proper working, markers sometimes give full marks (they usually take it as transcription or copying error).