The MTQ habits that save you fifteen minutes
Ravi Menon5 min read
Multi-task questions are as much an interface test as a technical one. Six spreadsheet habits that buy back time in the CBE.
Multi-task questions punish hesitation. The technical content is rarely harder than a standard constructed-response question, but the environment is unfamiliar and the clock does not care.
Habit one: read every task before you start task one. MTQ sub-tasks frequently share a figure, and knowing that in advance stops you calculating the same number twice.
Habit two: use the formula bar rather than a calculator. Markers award method marks from what is in the cell, and a formula shows your working in a way a typed constant does not.
Habit three: label your workings in adjacent cells. It costs eight seconds and it is the difference between a marker following your logic and guessing at it.
Written by
Ravi Menon
Tutor at The Ilum. Teaches the papers they write about, and marks them.