Minute 1: Mark the Unanswered Questions
Flip through the paper and find anything blank. An unanswered question is the most expensive thing on a Maths paper, because it cannot earn anything at all, while even a partial start on a method can. Prioritise the question with the most marks that you have a genuine start on, not the one you like the look of.
Get something down even if it is only the first line of a method or a correct formula quoted. Our guide on method marks without finishing a question explains how partial working earns credit, which is exactly the principle at work here.
Minutes 2 to 4: Find Questions One Step From Marks
Next, look for questions where one more step would convert what you have already written into marks: an unfinished final line, a question you abandoned halfway through a method, or an answer you wrote without simplifying when the question asked for it. These are the cheapest marks on the paper because the thinking is already done.
Do not start a long, unfamilar question from scratch in the last ten minutes. A fresh five-mark problem is unlikely to be finished in time, while a half-completed one usually is. If you are unsure whether a question is worth returning to, our guide on working out what a question is actually asking helps you judge quickly what it needs.
Minutes 5 to 8: Run the Targeted Checks
Now check, but check specific things rather than vaguely rereading. The high-yield list, in order:
- Calculator entries: glance at what you typed against what you meant, especially brackets and decimals, since a correct method with a mistyped input still loses the answer mark
- Signs: minus signs in expansions, when moving terms across the equals sign, and on final answers that should not be negative
- Units: cm squared for areas, pounds for money, correct units on every final answer that asks for a quantity
- Copied numbers: the number you carried from the question or from the previous line of working is still the same one
- What the question asked for: an equation when values were asked for, an estimate when an exact answer was asked for, rounded to the degree of accuracy requested
A fast sense-check belongs in this block too: does each final answer look plausible in size and sign? A probability above 1, a negative length or a wildly large bill are instant flags. Our guide on how to stop silly mistakes in GCSE Maths covers these checking techniques in more detail.
Minutes 9 to 10: Make Your Working Earn Its Keep
Finally, confirm that useful working is visible. Anything you calculated in your head during the exam should be written down where you can, because invisible working earns nothing on a multi-step question. Cross out errors with a single line rather than scribbling: examiners can award method marks for correct working, and heavily scribbled-out work risks hiding it.
This is also the moment to make sure answers sit in the answer spaces and question numbers match, which sounds trivial and is exactly the kind of thing that goes wrong under pressure.
What Not to Do With the Last 10 Minutes
- Do not completely redo everything: a full re-solve of the paper is impossible in ten minutes, and redoing calculations from the same mistaken assumption just repeats the error
- Do not change an answer you reasoned through unless you have found a specific fault in it, because second-guessing correct work loses real marks
- Do not panic-erase method marks: even where a final answer is wrong, correct earlier working can still score
- Do not sit doing nothing because the paper is technically finished: the checks above are the reason those minutes exist
The mindset for the final stretch is calm and mechanical: you are running a checklist, not rethinking the paper. If ten minutes of checking feels tight, the fix lives earlier in the exam rather than at the end, which our guide on managing time across a GCSE Maths paper covers, including how to leave checking time by refusing to overspend on single questions.
Practise the Routine Before the Exam
A checking routine only holds under pressure if it has been rehearsed, so build these ten minutes into past-paper practice deliberately: stop with ten minutes left, run the order above, and note what it caught. After two or three papers you will know your own most common catches, and the routine becomes automatic. Our guide on how many past papers to do covers fitting that rehearsal in.
If slips and lost final minutes are costing you marks despite practice, one-to-one GCSE Maths tutoring can include timed papers with feedback on exactly this, and you can get matched with a tutor to start.