A few weeks ago I wrote a post about my first experience with the ‘NOMA’, it is safe to say that I was not at all pleased with the result that I got. Therefore, this week I decided that I would give it another go. This time however my surroundings were much different, I was not doing it in a busy cafe surrounded by people talking, this time I done it in the Library where it was much calmer and a better atmosphere to be doing an assessment.

When doing the actual thing I felt much more relaxed and felt that I understood the questions more this time around. I took my time with each question, this again helped me to understand it better. The first time around I felt that I over complicated a lot of the questions, this was not the case this time, I looked at the question as a whole and used the correct steps to solve it, I realised that it really wasn’t supposed to be complicated at all.

Something else that I done different this time was that I went back and checked all of the questions again, just to make sure that I had answered everything and that I had done them correctly. Upon submitting it, it was revealed that I had done far better than my original attempt, this time I had achieved 82%. I believe that this is a better reflection of my understanding of maths, I believe that by looking at the questions that I got wrong I will be able to improve my score even further in the future.

On Tuesday, I decided to finally take the bull by the horns and do the thing I had been dreading doing….. the “NOMA”. I have always felt that I struggled with maths when at school as I feel that I excel more in literacy subjects. However, I knew that it was something that I would have to do and in reality it was there to help me. Therefore, my friend and I decided to head over to the university library to attempt it. When went into the library to find that there was very little computers available so we ended up using the computers in the cafe. In hindsight this was probably not the best idea as there was constant comings and going with a lot of noise making it a very hard environment to concentrate in.

y actual experience of the “NOMA” is that it I actually over thought some of the questions, making them harder than they actually were. I worked my way through the questions, some of which I found very easy and some I found quite challenging. I came to the end of the test and with my every bit of courage I had I submitted it. I knew that there was room for improvement on a lot of the questions. The page loaded to say that I had achieved 52%, I felt that with more practice and in a better environment that I would be able to do much better. This will only help my understanding of maths and it will ultimately help me understand how to teach it. I will attempt this again in the future to try and see how I have improved.

Next week when I am able to go to the university library I will be attempting the “OLA”, I will reflect on my performance in this once I have completed it.