Making mistakes can feel awful. No one likes to make mistakes and we often feel like we are defined by our mistakes. As a result, many people act out of fear, doing their best to avoid making mistakes. However, we can learn from our mistakes and avoiding mistakes comes at the cost of learning and growing.
Respond Appropriately
Rather than avoiding mistakes, you should learn how to embrace your mistakes and respond appropriately to mistakes. An essay posted on Lifehacker offers two excellent pieces of advice when approaching your mistakes,
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- “Don’t equate making mistakes with being a mistake.”
- “Growth starts when you can see room for improvement.”
Practice Exams
These two pieces of advice can be easily applied to preparing for the SAT or ACT. Taking practice exams allows you to make mistakes and learn from them without severe consequences. As you approach the practice exam don’t avoid problems that seem too challenging. Look at challenging problems as an opportunity to make a mistake you can learn from.
Invest in Learning
Respond well to your mistake. Learn to identify when you have made a easily correctable mistake, such as accidentally using the wrong number in an equation, and when you need to spend more time learning a concept so that you don’t repeat the mistake. When you make the same mistakes over and over, recognize that you may need to go back and relearn the material or develop a new strategy for approaching the problem
Mistakes are only helpful when you invest the time into learning from them. With practice exams, it can be easy to look the other way or tell yourself you’ll get it next time. Examine each mistake and determine what you can learn from it. How will you avoid mistakes and get that type of problem correct on the real exam?
Learn From Experience
The more practice exams you take, the more experience you will have to learn from. When you have plenty of experience you won’t make unnecessary mistakes on the graded exam. Learning from your mistakes is a significant part of exam preparation. Learning to grow from your mistakes will be helpful throughout your life.