How should you spend the 5 minutes reading time at the start of the exam? Is it better to start answering the multiple choice or look at the harder questions at the end and get an idea of how to approach them?
I don't know about others, but
not once have I tried to do many questions at all during the reading time.
The HSC maths papers are fairly long, and the only reading time I have is 5 minutes. The best I could try to do is get a few of the multiple choice out of the way, but what's the point in doing that if I'm gonna have forgotten my answers once the reading time is over? All I know is what the M/C will be like - the rest of the paper would daunt me once I got there.
When I'm in my reading time, I take the time to scan through the paper and understand
what exactly is being tested. I consider what topics are being examined in which question, any questions that I would probably know how to do immediately and other questions that I'd probably need a lot of brainpower on. I read the question very quickly - I don't look out for details until I'm actually doing the question. I just figure out what I'm being examined on, and in what way is it being examined.
And I would know what questions I'd struggle on more, because I would understand what topics in the course I'd be comparatively shit at.
After that, I get a good feel about the entire paper. I have an idea about which questions I would want to do immediately, and also which questions
I would rather skip and come back to later instead of burn 30 minutes staring at it potentially wastefully. Usually, because I'll ponder over the hard ones for a tad longer, by the end of it my 5 minutes will be up. Occasionally, I'm left with 1 minute to spare. In that circumstance, I try to do only two multiple choice questions, in particular those doable by inspection (not something I have to hold a calculator for). It's much easier for me to retain the answers to 2 things instead of a bundle of 10.