How to ACE Year 9 Maths

Year 9 maths is undoubtedly the turning point in your mathematical journey.

Apart from revising concepts from Year 8, you will also start to learn some fascinating mathematical concepts that you may have not encountered before. This is what will set the foundation for your senior studies in maths.

More than anything, it is so important to enjoy what you are learning this year. Maths can be fun and easy if you make it so!

Therefore, let’s get right into these tips that will help you ACE Year 9 Maths. 

• Don’t understand? Just ask!

A lot of students fall into the trap of thinking that they need to figure out everything for themselves. This is far from the truth – your teachers are there to help simplify things down!

If you come across a question that you don’t understand, just ask your teacher/parent/peer to help. It is likely that you are just overcomplicating things or forgetting a key idea. Spending a lot of time on a single question can lead to frustration, so it is better that you get a straightforward answer before getting completely tired of what you are learning.  

The same goes to understanding some theory. Putting that little bit of extra effort to clarify something that you don’t know can really help you get the marks that you deserve.

• Create mind-maps

I know what you’re thinking. Mind-maps are best suited for content heavy subjects like science and humanities.

The truth is, the different topics you learn in maths all link to each other in some way or another. For example, if you are working on Pythagoras, you need algebra to solve most of the trigonometric equations! Therefore, creating mind maps is a great way to understand how maths operates as a whole, and realise which topics overlap with one another.

This will help you a lot come exam time, as teachers like to create questions that combine multiple concepts. 

• Know how to use your calculator

This year, you will likely learn many new functions that you can use on your calculator. It is important that you know how to access these prior to undertaking any tests.

Some other things that you should know how to do on the calculator are:

•        Converting between decimal and fractional form
•        Using powers
•        Trigonometric and inverse trigonometric functions (very important!)

Don’t rely on your calculator for basic arithmetic though. Your teachers may decide to give you tech-free exams so you should be comfortable with things like adding fractions, times tables, long division, etc.

• Create summary sheets

Although there’s not a lot of theory to remember in maths, summary sheets are a great way to revise everything you have learnt in a topic.  

Take a sheet of paper and write down the name of the topic you want to revise. Set a timer and write down everything you know about the topic. These notes can include formulas, examples, and real life examples. Once the timer is up, you can add anything that you may have missed.  

While this is a great way to revise for a topic test, come exam time, you will have summary sheets on all the topics you covered throughout the year!

• Practise worded problems

Your textbook has a lot of repetitive questions. This is designed to get you to nail a concept through lots of practise, but this is not enough for your test revision.

Teachers love to throw in worded problems when they create tests. These questions tell a story, and it is up to you to gain both an understanding of what the story is about and then solve it. It is not easy to combine maths with words!

Therefore, by doing practise worded problems, you will start to gain an idea of how to find key words, extract the story and manipulate the numbers. It is also likely that a single worded problem will combine multiple areas of maths.

• Change your study methods

Studying maths can get boring if you’re consistently studying the same way. There are only so much practise questions that we can do before we get burnt out from them!

 Luckily for us, there’s lots of different ways that we can study for maths.

•        YouTube videos are great for explaining concepts.
•        You and a friend can write your own tests and then do each other’s.
•        Teach someone else, whether it be a sibling, parent or pet!

• Practise timed questions

One key mistake that students make when studying maths is not doing questions in timed conditions. Believe it or not, this mostly happens during Years 9-10, as students are still getting into the gist of doing exams.

Unfortunately, when completing a timed test, you don’t have too much time to contemplate the question. If you have practised doing timed questions in your own time, you will feel less overwhelmed when completing your tests. You will know how to manage your time better, and your brain will have automatically adjusted to working that little bit faster.

• Get into the habit of checking your work as you go

We all make silly mistakes when doing maths. The best way to prevent mistakes is checking your work. Unfortunately, it is rare that we get time at the end of a test to check over our work.

Therefore, it is much better for you to check your work as you go. This means you don’t have to come back to a question – once it’s done, its done.

If you practise checking your work in your study sessions, you will start to get into the habit of doing it during a test as well.

• Show ALL your working out

It is so important that you write down all your working out when doing a question, whether it is a revision question or one in a test.  

•        Your teacher can give you partial marks for a question if you have working out, even if the final answer is wrong
•        It helps prevent silly errors
•        You will understand how you got the answer if you look over the same question when revising 

• Remember: Talent ≠ Success

You don’t need to be good at maths to enjoy it. What is important is that you put in effort. Effort can come in many forms, from asking questions, to doing practise questions to undertaking timed practise tests. Ultimately, it is up to you to put in the effort you think that you need to achieve your goals.   

Don’t be disheartened if you get bad marks. Just continue putting in effort and everything will fall into place.

That brings us to the end of these tips to help you ACE Year 9 Maths. Hopefully you are now motivated to conquer this year! Whatever you do, just remember to do what you can, and don’t stress too much.  

You can find some Year 9 Maths Notes that summarise concepts in a very easy to understand way here.

Or, if you prefer, check out these FREE Year 9 Maths flashcards here.