Most parents tell their kids to “check your work”.
Most students nod… and then stare blankly at the paper because they don’t know what that really means.
Checking isn’t “redo every question”.
Checking isn’t “scan through quickly and pray”.
Checking is a skill. And when done well, it saves marks, reduces careless mistakes, and improves exam confidence.
To make this simple, I’ve refined the process into four steps I call the PUSH Method:
P – Plan
U – Units
S – Sense
H – Handwriting
Let’s go through each one.
1. PLAN – Rebuild the idea before checking the steps
Most students try to re-check their answers by repeating their calculations.
That’s not only slow, it’s ineffective.
A good check starts with one simple question:
“What was my plan for solving this question?”
Read the question again (properly), and re-formulate the plan in your mind.
Now compare:
Does your new plan match the working you wrote earlier?
→ Great, move on.
Does your plan contradict your working?
→ Stop. Think again. Don’t rush to erase everything. Many students throw away the correct working because they panic.
This is why I repeatedly emphasise:
Always write statements in your working.
If your reasoning is clear the first time, checking becomes fast and painless.
2. UNITS – Don’t lose marks over something avoidable
Every year, countless marks disappear over unit errors.
Child writes a mixed number even though the question asks for improper fraction.
Uses centimetres when the answer requires metres.
Writes 0.25 kg when the question asks for grams.
These mistakes have nothing to do with ability.
They are entirely preventable.
A simple habit solves this:
Circle or underline the required unit before doing the question.
It takes one second. And it saves marks every exam.
3. SENSE – Does your answer make any real-world sense?
This is the most important and the most neglected part.
Mathematics is not just numbers. It is logic and meaning.
Some of the funniest (and saddest) answers I’ve seen:
Diagram shows an acute angle. Student writes 106°.
Question: “How many ice-cream sticks are left?”
Student: 22⅓ sticks. (How do you even break a stick into thirds?)
Asked for the value of x.
Student confidently gives the value of y.
“Sum of the first 521 numbers.”
Student writes 0.
These are not calculation errors.
These are thinking errors.
And surprisingly, they happen to smart, capable students too.
Here are the two biggest reasons why.
Reason 1: The student didn’t read the question fully
They saw a few keywords, assumed the rest, and jumped into working.
Fix:
Slow down just a tiny bit. Read till the last word.
Form a plan before writing anything:
What is the question asking for?
What information is given?
What can I infer?
What should I find first?
What comes after?
This 20–30 second investment prevents 80% of nonsense answers.
Reason 2: The student got lost halfway
They started solving… then forgot the objective.
Their attention drifted.
They got absorbed by calculations.
They submitted whatever was on the page because time was nearly up.
Fix #1: Strengthen basic calculations.
If simple operations drain too much mental energy, students lose the “big picture”.
Good calculation fluency keeps the mind free for actual thinking.
Fix #2: Manage “brain fillers”.
Every student has internal noise. Songs, TikTok clips, weekend plans, random thoughts.
There’s nothing wrong with that.
The skill is learning to refocus even when distractions appear.
4. HANDWRITING - If the marker can’t read it, it doesn’t count.
Some students lose marks not because their answers are wrong, but because the marker cannot understand what they wrote.
Common disasters:
A “0” that looks like a “6”.
A “4” that looks like a “9”.
Final answer written as:
92 + 41 = 132
(which makes the marker scream internally)
Sometimes, students even guess the answer correctly, but write the wrong digits on the paper.
In exams, this is tragic.And unnecessary.
Handwriting doesn’t need to be pretty. It just needs to be readable.
Fast thinkers often complain,
“My ideas move faster than my hand!”
Fair.
I was that student too.
But that simply means you have one extra responsibility:
Write fast and write clearly.
A few easy habits help:
Stick to consistent areas for drawings, workings, and answers.
Use a pen that helps your handwriting stay stable.
Practise writing at speed without letting clarity drop.
You are in control of the tool, not the other way around.
Bonus: “Where is your answer?”
Many students scatter their workings all over the page.
Markers end up doing treasure hunting.
A simple layout guideline:
Left: diagrams, models, planning
Middle: main workings and statements
Right: additional workings or overflow
Neat presentation isn’t about being artistic.
It’s about respecting your own thinking process.
Final Thoughts
Checking isn’t a chore.
Checking is a strategy.
When students know how to check, they lose fewer marks, think more clearly, and walk out of the exam room with confidence, not panic.
The PUSH Method helps them do exactly that:
Plan → Units → Sense → Handwriting
Small steps. Big difference.
If you want a full breakdown of how to solve problem sums systematically, my MathSifu MasterPlan pairs perfectly with this. It gives students a predictable way to think, not just a list of formulas to memorise.
See you in the next one!
~ MathSifu
P.S. For my MMP students, I'll be sharing a more in-depth article on this in my Sixth Constant publication. You can access it via your learning dashboard. 😉