Check your math work and find exactly where it went wrong

1. Open a whiteboard and write the question and your working, one step per line.
2. Ask the tutor to check it. It reads the board and works through your steps in order.
3. It finds the first mistake. Later steps often follow correctly from an earlier error, so it focuses on where things first went off track.
4. It explains the idea and asks you to redo the step, instead of rewriting the solution for you.
5. You get a similar question to make sure the fix sticks.

If your handwriting is unclear in places, it tells you which part it couldn't read and asks you to type it rather than guessing.

Solve $5 - 2(x + 1) = 9$. A student writes:

• $5 - 2x + 2 = 9$
• $7 - 2x = 9$
• $-2x = 2$
• $x = -1$

The tutor spots that line 1 went wrong: $-2(x + 1)$ expands to $-2x - 2$, not $-2x + 2$. It asks: "When you multiply $-2$ by $+1$, what sign do you get?" The student corrects it: $5 - 2x - 2 = 9$, so $3 - 2x = 9$, $-2x = 6$ and $x = -3$. Then the tutor suggests checking by substituting: $5 - 2(-3 + 1) = 5 + 4 = 9$. Correct.

A grade 5 student adds $\tfrac{1}{3} + \tfrac{1}{4}$ and writes $\tfrac{2}{7}$.

The tutor explains that you can only add fractions when the pieces are the same size, so first you need a common denominator. It asks: "What number can both 3 and 4 go into?" The student finds 12, rewrites the fractions as $\tfrac{4}{12} + \tfrac{3}{12}$ and gets $\tfrac{7}{12}$. A quick picture on the whiteboard (a bar split into twelfths) shows why $\tfrac{2}{7}$ couldn't be right: it's smaller than $\tfrac{1}{3}$ on its own.

Knowing your own common mistakes is valuable: the tutor keeps short notes about what you find tricky and brings those ideas back in later practice.

A wrong final answer can come from a misunderstanding (like how to expand brackets) or a slip (like copying a number wrongly). These need different fixes. Seeing the exact step helps you tell them apart, and fixing misunderstandings early stops them repeating in every later topic. For more on practising effectively, see how to study math.

The tutor can misread messy handwriting or make mistakes, so if its feedback doesn't make sense, ask it to explain again or check with your teacher. For graded homework, use it to understand your mistakes, then do the work yourself.