How to Improve Your Calculation Speed in Any Competitive Exam

Calculation Speed

Quantitative aptitude is considered to be a daunting section in any competitive exam. Although most students fear this section, it has the potential to be the highest-scoring section if prepared with a well-thought-out plan and intense practice.

On the other hand, besides having a sound understanding of the concepts, the candidate must need to develop a few core skills out of which speed is a must.

A candidate with higher speed ability can manage time well and has a better chance of scoring well in the quantitative aptitude section in any competitive exam.

On that note, let’s discuss a few tips and tricks to improve your calculation speed so that you can maximize your attempts and in turn maximize your score in any competitive exam.

Practice

The more diverse types of sums a student practices, the better his or her chances of gaining speed and accuracy in addressing complex problems, analytical questions, and reasoning questions. This is very important especially in topics where questions involve lengthy calculations such as Statistics, Mensuration, Quadratic Equations and others.

Approximation techniques

Many competitive exams include a portion on the quantitative ability that includes lengthy, hard problems. And solving them requires lengthy calculations. As a result, if students can develop approximation strategies for faster calculations, and in turn increasing accuracy by nearly tenfold, no one will be able to stop them from scoring better and cracking their exams.This can benefit you in topics like Sets, Indices, Matrices and more.

Clarity of Concepts

The first stage is to ensure that the fundamentals and concepts are understood. This aids in swiftly solving an arithmetic problem. Before learning a formula or short trick, try to get a hang of the fundamentals behind it so when you forget it, you can derive it easily in the exam.

Learn the formulas and Short Tricks

To solve the sums of arithmetical problems, one must use formulae and short tricks where ever possible. As a result, mastering the various formulas and short tricks will aid in quickly solving long complex questions quickly.

Learn Squares, Cube and Tables

Learn the tables at least up to 25 as well as square and cubes up to 30 and 20 respectively to speed up your calculations. Any higher square or cube is reasonably simple to calculate. Furthermore, you must learn short tricks for quick addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division operations.

Because of their inability to remember, most students waste time solving simple and rapid computations. You can also learn Powers of 2 up to 12 and Powers of 3 up to 6 as this will help questions relating to the Number System. 

Use Reverse Solving Process

When you’re stuck on a question during the exam and can’t find a quicker way of reaching the answer, go over your options and determine which one best suits the question and go for it.

Practice Mental Calculation

We all have a good understanding of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Candidates should learn to execute these calculations mentally rather than using traditional methods for answering Quantitative Aptitude/Numerical Ability questions. There are certain methods that can be used to do this. 

Vedic Maths

Quantitative Aptitude calculations can be done using Vedic Maths. Using Vedic Math Tricks, you may tackle any difficult/time-consuming JEE problem or ICSE/ CBSE Math problem instantly. Furthermore, the beauty of Vedic Maths is that you may solve a problem mentally only by applying it. While polynomial functions and quadratic sums are encountered in upper classes in the CBSE or ICSE Board, understanding Vedic Maths will assist you in overcoming the difficulty level of those sums.

Shehroz Hassan

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