Review your mistakes with an error log
A simple error log that turns every wrong answer from a past paper into a revision task, and stops you repeating the same mistakes.
PYQSathi team · 2 min read · Updated 3 Oct 2026
Solving more papers feels productive, but improvement comes from what you do after a paper. An error log makes that review systematic.
Classify every mistake
For each question you got wrong, skipped or guessed, write down which kind of mistake it was:
- Concept gap. You didn’t know or understand the topic.
- Recall slip. You had studied it but couldn’t remember it.
- Misread. You missed a word like “not”, “incorrect” or “except”.
- Calculation error. Right method, wrong arithmetic.
- Time pressure. You would have got it with more time.
- Bad guess. You guessed when your rules said to skip.
Each kind has a different fix. Concept gaps need study, recall slips need spaced revision, misreads and calculation errors need slower checking habits, and time pressure needs targeted speed drills.
Keep the log short
One line per mistake is enough: the paper and question number, the topic, the mistake type, and a one-line note on the correct reasoning. A notebook or a simple spreadsheet works fine.
Use the official answer key
Check answers against the official key where the exam body publishes one. Unofficial solutions are sometimes wrong, and learning a wrong answer is worse than not learning it. On PYQSathi, official answer keys are labelled and linked to their paper when there’s an exact match.
Revisit the log weekly
Once a week, read the whole log and:
- pick the most common mistake type and plan one fix for it;
- re-attempt the concept-gap questions from memory;
- strike out entries you now handle confidently.
Over a few weeks, the log shows you which weaknesses are fixed and which keep coming back.