How to train yourself NOT to make arithemtic mistakes?
 

Putting down wrong numbers (by mere accident), missing "-" signs, and placing decimals in the wrong place...

Is it possible to train yourself not to make stupid arithmetic mistakes? They are evil because you can know the material really well, but due to dumb mistakes like that you can score way below your potential.

Even when I read through wrong numbers, I don't notice them... rarely notice them.

What can I do to help myself?

Measure twice cut once?

dont do arithemtics ? per chance .

thats a sure way

In Finance? You kidding right?

Stop doing it by hand? You should always be allowed to use a calculator/computer unless it's some uptight class.

You cannot train yourself to not make mistakes. You can only understand why you make those mistakes and remedy the problem(s). In your case, based on your forum persona, I'd suggest that the reason you make mistakes is because you're in too much of a rush to do everything and you have difficulty focusing on individual tasks. There is also the possibility that you do not understand the material, but instead train yourself to follow examples or other people's work. This very question, and basically every other question you've ever asked, is strong evidence to the fact.

Slow down and pay attention to your work. Being rushed is a state of mind and it's got more to do with your own perceptions that it has to do with your watch. Learn to manage your time. Use the time you save to check your work before you sign off on it. Ideally, do not check the question that you have just completed, instead check it later. If this is a test, go work on another question and come back to one you've already done to check it, that way you're in another frame of mind and looking more critically.

If you cannot pay attention to details, you'll be useless in finance.

That's how they do it with circumcision all right!

Eh? I know the material, but I end up putting 102 instead of 108 and its completely random because 102 doesn't even exist, but when I read it to myself - I actually see 108 because I KNOW that 108 has to be there.

None of my mistakes are related to making a common mistake, but completely random number, sign or decimal mistake.

You sound dyslexic....

Or was that lysdexic?

I've found that it's helpful to find some way to double check your work in a way that forces you to solve the problem in a different way. Thus you'll be less likely to retread the same error twice. Also, forcing yourself to read the numbers slowly, backwards etc whatever so that you're actually reading it instead of just half-reading and half-recovering from memory helps.

BTW, I'm curious: since you are perfect otherwise, how much are you scoring now with these errors?

I do that when I'm writing sometimes. I get ahead of myself and start thinking about the next word and write the wrong letter. I also suggest slowing down and making sure you know what you should be writing down, thus if you mess up you'll know and fix it.

To check for spelling mistakes in a document read it backwards. :) That way you look at each word, rather than the sentence itself.

As for math mistakes, well, I'm terrible at math.

I know it when I write it. It's not a matter of checking for it, it's just that I write the wrong letter http://discussworldissues.com/forums...ies/wacko1.gif.

Check numbers in both directions. So check from source --> target, then from target ---> source as a double check.

This is of course assuming that what you are doing is effectively collating data from one source to another combined source (as is often the case in accounting).