Running Out of Time in a Maths Paper: Skip, Mark and Come Back

20 October 2026 · by Larry

The paper comes back with the last page blank. Nothing is crossed out, nothing is half-started. Your child says, “I ran out of time.” Yet when you sit together that evening, she does those last questions without much trouble.

So the maths was there. What went wrong was where the time went, and it usually went somewhere specific: one question near the middle that she would not let go of.

The question that eats the paper

Picture a child who reaches question 14, a word problem that does not click. She reads it, tries an idea, rubs it out, tries another. It feels wrong to leave it, because leaving it feels like giving up. Ten minutes later she has a half-answer, and the clock has taken more from her than that one question can give back.

Here is a made-up example, only to show the arithmetic. Suppose a section has 20 questions and 40 minutes, so about two minutes each. If one question takes ten minutes, the other nineteen now have thirty minutes between them, which is a little over a minute and a half each. The rest of the paper gets rushed because of one question, and rushed work is where the “careless” mistakes come from. A child who loses the marks on the stuck question but keeps the time for the others is usually better off than one who wins it and loses three more later.

Skip, mark, return

The habit is three steps, and it is worth practising until it is dull.

• Skip. When a question has not started to make sense after a short, fair try, leave it. “Short” is something you agree with your child at home, such as: I have read it twice and tried one idea.
• Mark. Put a small circle or star beside the question number, so she can find it again in one second. A question that is skipped and not marked is easily lost, and children know it, which is why they hate skipping.
• Return. Finish the questions she can do, then come back to the marked ones. Often a question that looked impossible at minute 12 looks ordinary at minute 35, because her mind has been on other things and she is calmer.

The questions she can do are the safest marks in the paper, and skipping makes sure she reaches them.

Why children will not skip

It helps to know the reasons, because telling a child to “just skip it” does not work if one of them is in the way.

• It feels like failing. A child who is used to getting things right sees an empty space as a defeat. Say it plainly: skipping is a plan, not a surrender.
• She is afraid she will forget to come back. That is what the mark is for. Practise until she trusts it.
• She believes the question must be easy. “Everyone else can do this, so I should.” Nobody can see anyone else’s paper, so this thought only costs her time.
• She has always gone in order. Nothing says a paper must be done from the first question to the last. Going in order is a habit, not a rule.

The other ways time disappears

Stuck questions are the biggest cause, but not the only one. Look at the paper itself to see which applies to your child.

• Copying the question out in full. A child who rewrites every long word problem before starting spends time that the marks do not pay for. Underlining the numbers and the question word is enough.
• Checking as she goes. Checking one line at a time breaks her train of thought and costs time on every question. A better way is to finish, then check, if time allows.
• Rubbing out and rewriting neat working. A neat page is nice, but a line crossed out with a single stroke, and the right working beside it, costs far less time. Ask her to cross out and carry on.
• Doing the sum the long way. Working out 25 × 4 by long multiplication when she could simply know it is 100. Quick recall of times tables frees a lot of time; the times tables piece covers how to build it.
• Starting slowly. Some children use the first ten minutes to settle down, so the first few questions take double the time they should. A short warm-up at home before a practice paper shows whether that is her.

Where is the time really going? A way to find out

Guessing is not necessary, because the paper tells you. Sit with your child after a practice paper and, without correcting anything, ask three things.

• Which question took the longest? If she remembers one, that is probably the stuck-question problem.
• Where did you start to hurry? The question number where her writing got messier is often the moment she realised time was short.
• Which questions did you not get to, and could you have done them? If she could, you now know what the clock cost, and that is more convincing to a child than any lecture.

If the answer to the last question is “most of them”, she is probably not weak at the topic. She needs a plan for the time, and the plan is above.

What helps

• Practise the skip at home, on purpose. Give her a page of ten questions with two that are slightly too hard, and say, “Your job is to skip those two, mark them and come back.” Praise the skip, not only the correct answers.
• Agree a rule of thumb for how long is too long, in her own words, not a stopwatch: “Read it twice, try one idea, then mark it.”
• Do one page a week in one sitting, on paper, with a clock she can see. The gap between screen and paper is partly a gap in managing a whole page, and that is only learned by doing one.
• Leave a few minutes at the end for the marked questions, and for a quick look at the ones she is unsure about.
• Write something for every question she attempts. Working on a hard question may earn part of the marks. The post on why a right answer can still lose marks looks at the working side.

What does not help

• Telling her to work faster. It makes her rush the easy questions as well, and the mistakes move from the hard questions to the easy ones. The post on when timing helps and when it backfires looks at this.
• Timing her on topics she is still learning. A clock on a topic she has not understood only shows her that she is slow.
• Making the stuck question the lesson. If she skipped it and later found it easy, that is a win. Why she was stuck can wait until after the exam period.
• Treating a blank page as laziness. It is more often time, nerves, or both.

If she goes blank even on questions she knows, that is a different problem, and freezing on a question they know has more on it.

A ten-minute check you can do at home

Pick a page of about ten mixed questions from her own school worksheets. Tell her the page is not for marking. The only job is to practise the plan.

• Agree a time limit together, and put a clock where she can see it.
• Ask her to mark any question she skips with a small circle.
• When the time is up, count three things: how many she answered, how many she skipped and marked, and how many she did not reach at all.

The number to watch is the last one. If it is zero, the plan is working, whatever the marks say. Repeat the page a week later and see whether it stays at zero.

Where this fits

How a paper is laid out, how long it lasts and how marks are given is set by her school and MOE, so use her own past papers for the real timings rather than any figure in this post. StudyLab’s free maths practice builds the fluency that saves time on each question; the planning is a paper skill, and it is learned on paper.