Multiple choice Paper 1: forty questions in an hour, without running out

In Cambridge O Level Physics (5054), Chemistry (5070) and Biology (5090), Paper 1 is 40 multiple-choice questions in 1 hour, each with four options. That is an average of 90 seconds a question. The 90 seconds is our own arithmetic from the paper's time and number of questions, not advice from Cambridge.

An average hides a lot. A recall question may take twenty seconds. A calculation, or a question built on a graph or table, may take three minutes. The aim is not 90 seconds on every question. It is to make sure the quick ones pay for the slow ones.

Two checkpoints help:

• Halfway. At 30 minutes, you want to be around question 20, or past it.
• The end. Try to finish your first pass with a few minutes left for the questions you flagged.

The wrong options are there to tempt you. They are often built from common mistakes: the right number with the wrong unit, a step missed out, or a true fact that does not answer this question.

So read the question first and, where you can, work out your answer before you look at the options. Then find it among them. With your own answer in mind, you are much less likely to be pulled towards an option that just looks familiar.

For a question with a diagram, graph or table, read the labels, axes and units before anything else. For a calculation, write the working down wherever the paper's instructions say rough working goes. It takes a few seconds and catches a lot of slips.

Some questions ask which statement is not true, or which option is incorrect. Under time pressure it is easy to read these the wrong way round and pick the first true statement you see.

When a question contains NOT, incorrect, false, least or except, underline that word before you do anything else. Then check each option against the question: true, true, false, true. The odd one out is the answer.

If the options are rows in a table, for example ticks and crosses for four substances, work down one column at a time and cross out every row that fails. That is safer than trying to hold all four rows in your head at once.

The quickest way to run out of time is to get stuck. You have spent two minutes on question 14, you feel you are nearly there, and so you spend two more.

Give yourself a rule. If a question has passed about two minutes and you are not close, make a sensible guess, mark the question so you can find it again, and move on. Each question is worth one mark. A question that eats five minutes can cost you three easy questions you never reach.

When you come back at the end, the answer often comes more easily. You are calmer, and a later question may have reminded you of the idea you were missing.

Read the instructions on the front of your paper, and ask your teacher if you are unsure how it is marked. Unless the instructions say that wrong answers lose marks, a blank can never score and a careful guess sometimes does, so do not leave a blank.

Make the guess a careful one. Cross out every option you know is wrong, then choose from what is left. Removing even one option improves your chances.

If your answers go on a separate answer sheet, fill it in as you go, not all at the end. Every few questions, check that the number you are filling in matches the question you just answered. One skipped line can shift every answer after it.

Change an answer only when you have found a definite reason. A vague feeling that another option looks better is not one.

Marking a multiple-choice paper takes a minute. Learning from it takes longer, and that is where the improvement comes from.

For every question you got wrong, and every one you guessed, write down two things:

1. Why the right answer is right.
2. Why each option you were drawn to is wrong.

Write it yourself, in your own words. Explaining why a tempting option is wrong is a quick way to find the idea you had wrong, and the same misunderstanding tends to come back in another question. Keep the list, and reread it before your next paper.

Pacing is a skill, and it only improves with a clock running. Early on, do topic questions untimed so you learn the ideas. In the final months, sit whole Paper 1s in exactly one hour, with no pausing and no notes.

On Eudika Learn, multiple-choice papers can be sat as timed papers. A countdown runs, and the paper submits itself when time runs out. You can flag questions for review and jump between them with a question navigator, and nothing is marked until you hand in, as in the exam. Topic drills are different: they mark each question the moment you answer, which suits the learning stage. Start from the Physics, Chemistry or Biology papers, and see how to practise past papers for the full routine.