Look for your own repeated errors, and fix mistakes that you cannot see while you are writing.
Why checking wins marks
Almost every student leaves easy marks on the page. A verb does not match its subject.
A sentence stops halfway. An answer replies to the wrong question.
These are slips, not gaps in knowledge. A fresh read would catch them in seconds. But while you write, you cannot see your own errors, and the exam often ends before you read again.
So keep a small block of time at the end for checking. How much time you can spare depends on your paper, which changes by board and syllabus year.
Check your board’s paper structure on our qualification pages. Decide the time before you start, and do not spend it on more writing.
A routine for the checking time
Do not just re-read. A general skim slides over the errors you want to find. Check in this order.
- Completeness. Did you answer every question? Is any answer unfinished? These are the biggest and easiest wins.
- Your own repeated errors. Look for the slips you know you make, such as subject-verb agreement, tense changes, speech punctuation, missing word endings, or “their” and “there”.
- Drift. Read the first line of each answer next to the question. Did you answer what was asked?
- Small mechanical errors. Look for a missing full stop, a missing capital letter or a misplaced apostrophe.
Work quickly. The goal is to fix a few definite errors, not to rewrite sentences that were already fine.
A worked example
Wei finishes a paper with a few minutes left. On his check, he finds four things.
- A comprehension answer began “The reason she left was…” but the question asked how she left, not why. He rewrites it.
- One sentence in his composition stopped halfway. He finishes it.
- He wrote “the group of students were”, which is his usual agreement mistake. He changes it to “was”.
- A quotation was missing its closing quotation mark. He adds it.
None of these needed new knowledge. Four small fixes can be the difference between two grades. Without the checking time, all four would have stayed.
If this is where marks are going missing, a trial hour with an experienced teacher can work on it one-to-one.
Common mistakes
- Writing one more sentence instead of checking. The sentence rarely earns as much as the check would.
- A vague re-read. If you are not looking for anything in particular, you will notice nothing.
- Checking only the last answer. Scan the whole paper for gaps.
- Rewriting good sentences. This can add new errors and uses up your time.
- Not knowing your own mistakes. Every student should be able to name the two or three errors they make most.
How to practise
Make a short list of your own errors from marked work. Then take some old answers and give yourself a short, strict time limit.
Look only for gaps, your known errors, drift and small mechanical mistakes. Count how many real corrections you find.
Also sit full practice papers and always protect the checking time, so that stopping to check becomes automatic. You can also proofread a friend’s writing. It trains your eye for errors, which is harder to do with your own writing.
Learn the checking order by heart, so you do not waste time deciding what to look at. Some students write the first letter of each step at the top of the paper as a reminder.
How our teachers help
Students usually get stuck because they do not know which errors they repeat. In 1-to-1 lessons, our teachers look for the errors a student repeats in their own writing.
Then they practise the checking read until it becomes a habit. Our First Language English tuition covers this in both reading and writing papers.
Build the skill first with our guide to proofreading for accuracy, then try the timed practice tasks. You may also like handling word limits.
If you want to find your own repeated errors, book a paid one-hour trial. The teacher who would continue will mark a recent piece with you. Lessons start from RM70/hr, and we confirm the exact rate on WhatsApp.