Instruction Words
'Write Down' Questions: Where the Easy Marks Hide
Every NSC Maths paper has a handful of questions that take half a minute if you read them correctly and five minutes if you don't. They almost always start with the same two words: 'write down'. The marks on offer are real, the maths is usually small, and a surprising number of students either skip them in a panic or over-solve them and burn time they needed later. Here is what 'write down' is actually asking for, where the answer is hiding, and the one phrase that changes the rules.
By The Determine This Team · 9 October 2026 · Grade 10–12 · CAPS · NSC Mathematics
What 'Write Down' Means in an NSC Maths Exam
'Write down' means the answer is already sitting somewhere on the page, and your job is to find it and copy it out correctly. It might be in the equation you were given, in a graph, in a bullet point under the diagram, or in the answer to the sub-question just before. No derivation is expected. 'State' is the same instruction in different clothes. Both words tell you that the examiner has decided this step is a reading task, not a solving task, and has priced it accordingly.
A Real Question: Reading an Asymptote Off an Equation
The November 2023 Paper 1 exam, question 6.1.1, asks candidates to write down the equation of the asymptote of f. There is nothing to solve. The function's equation already shows the asymptote, because a shifted exponential or hyperbola carries its asymptote inside the formula. A student who starts a limit calculation here has answered a harder question than the one on the page. The mark goes to whoever reads the equation, spots the vertical or horizontal shift, and writes the line down in the form y = ... or x = ... .
A Real Question: The Answer Is in the Bullet Points
The November 2019 Paper 1 exam, question 4.1, shows the graphs of a parabola and a hyperbola and then asks candidates to write down the value of p. Nothing in the question says 'calculate', and the working is not hidden. The question's own bullet points tell you where the vertical asymptote of g sits relative to a point on f that you are already given. Read the bullets before you reach for algebra. This one matters beyond its own marks, too. Question 4.2 asks you to show that a = 3 and b = 2, and g's equation contains p. Get 4.1 wrong and the next part is built on sand.
Where Else the Easy Marks Sit
The same pattern shows up well outside the functions questions, in every paper and every grade. These are the places to look first.
- Statistics diagrams. The November 2017 Grade 11 Paper 2 exam, question 1.1.1, asks for the five-number summary from a box-and-whisker diagram. The five values are marked on the diagram. You are reading a scale, not computing anything.
- Sequences. The Grade 10 November 2018 Paper 1 exam, question 3.1, gives a finite linear pattern and asks for the 4th term. You are extending a pattern you can already see, so a general-term formula is not needed.
- Hence follow-ups. A question that says 'hence, write down' wants the previous answer reused. If you have just completed the square, the turning point or the maximum value is sitting in your own working.
- Graph features. Intercepts, asymptotes, range and period can usually be read from the equation or the sketch you already have.
The Trap: 'Write Down, With Reason'
Not every 'write down' question is a pure copy job. The November 2018 Paper 2 exam, question 8.1, gives a circle with a diameter and a tangent, tells you an angle, and asks candidates to write down, with reason, the size of another angle. Two instructions are fighting in that sentence. 'Write down' says no calculation. 'With reason' says the marker wants the circle geometry theorem named next to your answer. A bare number earns part of the marks at best. Whenever you see a qualifier after 'write down', such as 'with reason' or 'with a reason', the qualifier is the real instruction and the two words in front of it are just telling you not to do pages of working.
Why Over-Solving Costs More Than the Marks
Most students know they should not write a page for a 'write down' question. What they underestimate is the time. In a three-hour paper, two minutes lost on each of five of these questions is ten minutes you needed for a long Question 9 or a hard geometry proof. There is also a quieter risk. The longer you work on a reading question, the more chances you give yourself to introduce a sign error in a step nobody asked for, and a wrong final line can lose the mark that the first glance had already won. Spend the seconds on reading the question twice instead, and move on the moment you have the answer in the form requested.
A Quick Routine for Any 'Write Down' Question
Run through these four checks the moment you see the instruction.
- Look for the answer in the question itself: the equation, the diagram, the bullet points, the data table.
- Look at the sub-question directly above. If this one starts with 'hence' or follows a 'determine', your own answer is probably the source.
- Check for a qualifier after the instruction, such as 'with reason', 'correct to one decimal place', or 'in the form'. Follow it exactly.
- Write the answer in the form the question uses: a coordinate as (x ; y), an asymptote as an equation, an angle with its unit.
A Habit to Practise Before the Exam
Take any past paper and circle every 'write down' and 'state' in it before you attempt anything. Count them. Then, for each one, point to the exact place on the page where the answer is hiding. Most students find the list longer than they expected, and finding the source quickly turns a stressful scan of the paper into a short list of marks they already know they can get.
Read the full breakdown of 'write down' and 'state', including the signal phrases that point to a reading question, on the instruction word guides and topic guides.