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Be aware that you have one and a half hour to
complete the exam. This should be plenty of time, so, there's no reason to
panic or rush through the exam. But don't plan on taking naps or breaks
during the test. Keep working all the time;
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Once you receive the exam, take a few minutes to
read all questions carefully before you even start working on a problem. The
reason for this is twofold: you want to locate which question looks the
easiest to you, so that you start working on a problem that you
definitely know how to solve; the other reason is that, as you're working on
the easiest problem to you, your subconscious is already thinking about the
other problems, so, when you move on to the next problem, you'll already
have a jump start. Therefore, don't just gloss over the exam looking for
your easy problem for you to start. I suggest you read all problems
carefully, in order for your subconscious to have something to work with;
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As you are solving a problem, make sure to write
down all the steps and to pay extra attention when canceling terms or
dealing with negative signs; if you rush through these common steps, chances
are you'll forget a term, or forget to change the sign of some factor,
leading you to the wrong answer; if you don't write down all the steps and
you have a wrong answer, we can't give you partial credit, for we don't know
what you were thinking when solving the problem. And remember, a right
answer without any work/justification won't get you any points;
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Keep your mathematical notation straight (so
that your work makes sense) and, whenever necessary, make sure to explain in
words how you got to some conclusion (for example: the limit of f(x), as x
goes to 1, does not exist because its right side limit is different from its
left side limit);
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Once you've finished the exam, go over it and
double check your work... you might have forgotten a minus sign somewhere or
you may notice that you've miscalculated something... there's your chance to
fix these mistakes;