Improving Your Objective Test Taking Skills



Improving Your Test Taking Skills

Students who have not learned good test-taking skills are working with an unseen handicap. In almost every objective test, they give up points needlessly due to undisciplined testing behavior, irrational responses to test items, or a variety of other bad habits. This tutorial focuses on overcoming this costly handicap.

Effective test-taking is not about gimmickry. It is not about outwitting your teachers in a guessing game or applying some magical formula to test-taking. Instead, the successful student must apply critical reading and thinking skills to the test and avoid making careless mistakes.

Be Prepared

➢ Lots of anxiety can be avoided if you prepare adequately for the test.

Cut Out Careless Errors

➢ First, let's state the obvious: read the directions carefully.

➢ Secondly, monitor your time so you do not get in a last-minute rush to finish the test.

➢ Third, do not start second-guessing yourself and changing your original answers. Research has indicated that your first hunch is more likely to be correct. You should only change answers to questions if you originally misread them or if you have encountered information elsewhere in the test that indicates with certainty that your first choice is incorrect.

➢ Finally, allow enough time to go through the test to make sure that you have not left an item blank, marked the answer incorrectly, or made some other simple oversight.

Tips for taking Multiple-Choice Tests

Multiple choice items consist of a question or an incomplete statement, called the "stem," typically followed by four to five choices. Most often only one is the correct or "best" answer and the others are called distracters or decoys. A couple of strategies can help you do your best on multiple choice tests.

➢ First, cover the answers to an item and read only the stem of the question. See if you can provide the correct answer without having to be prompted by the choices.

➢ Second: Join each choice to the question or the stem and consider it as a true/false item. The answer that sounds most valid or "most true" should be your choice.

➢ Third, teachers are often limited in their "supply of decoys," and as a result will make up terms to use for that purpose. To the student who has missed classes or not studied, the made-up decoy is hard to detect. If you have been attending regularly and have done a good job of preparing for the test, you should not choose an answer that sounds totally new to you.

➢ Fourth, If you find yourself having to guess on multiple-choice items, you might keep the following tips in mind.

a. If the choices are a range of numbers (such as 50, 60, 75, 100), choose one of the ones in the

middle of the range. It is human nature for teachers to add decoy choices that are above and

below the correct answer.

b. If two of the choices have balanced phrasing or echo each other, choose one or the other. Again, human nature comes into play. If the correct answer on a nursing test is "lowers body temperature," it might be logical for the first decoy item that pops into the teacher's mind to be "raises body temperature." When researchers analyzed a wide range of teachers' tests, they found that the correct answer is often one of the phrases that has a parallel or "echoed" decoy item.

Tips for taking True-False Tests

Many students find true-false items especially difficult. A slight alteration in the phrasing of the item can make all the difference in the world, so these questions must be read and considered carefully. The basic ground rule for answering true-false items is that if any part of the statement is not true, then the student should select false as the answer. By the same token, true-false items can be over-analyzed to the point that the student goes beyond the scope of the question, looking to find an extreme exception to what the question is testing or the "trick" suspected of lurking somewhere in the phrasing. Read carefully, but judge what the question is actually saying.

Some teachers show a definite tendency toward having predominantly true or predominantly false items on their true false tests. It would be well worth your time to monitor the proportion of true to false items on the first couple of tests. If you are forced to guess on an item and if your teacher has shown a definite tendency on past tests toward mostly true or mostly false statements, choose whichever has been more frequent. Analyses of a wide variety of teachers’ tests indicate a greater percentage of true than false items. If no tendency has been apparent on past tests, your best option is to guess true.

You're Not Guessing...You're Thinking Critically.

You can improve your odds by keeping in mind some important information about language:

➢ Avoid words like always, never, invariably, none, all, every, and must. It is not impossible, but it is much more difficult, to write an absolute statement that is accurate and valid.

➢ Sometimes, teachers will add qualifying or clarifying terms or expressions to the right answer on multiple-choice items and true statements on true-false tests to avoid having to argue with students or defend the item later. The result is longer, more detailed items.

Under typical conditions, most of a child's core values are set by approximately age ten.

➢ When you have applied everything you know to the question and are still forced to guess,

choose multiple choice answers that are longer and more "qualified" in their phrasing.

Apply the same "yard stick" to true-false items: guess true for more detailed, qualified

statements and false for those that are short and contain absolute language.

Tips for writing Essay Test Answers

When you answer an essay question, you're showing how well you can explain and support an idea, not just what you know, so first and foremost, make certain you are ANSWERING the question asked. Keep the following ideas in mind.

Underline key words like define, compare, explain, describe or discuss. These are important key terms in identifying what is being asked of you.

Think before you write. Make a brief outline your response. Remember, a good answer:

3. Often starts with a direct response to the question.

4. Mentions the topics or areas which the essay question describes.

5. Provides specific as well as general information.

6. Uses the technical vocabulary of the course.

Write legibly. Graders sometimes presume your ignorance if they can't read your writing.

Proofread your essay answers. The few minutes you spend correcting errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling can improve your grade.

STRESS REDUCTION

Numerous studies have shown that using relaxation techniques regularly can:

Decrease the likelihood of heart attack and stroke, and can significantly reduce the incidence of a 2nd heart attack

Protects you from mental health problems

Improves your immune system function

Aids memory and learning

Improves your coping skills and makes you feel better!

Relaxation Techniques

Deep Breathing: a quick way to control anxiety before it gets away from you during an exam, and no one will know you are doing it!

Close your eyes and breathe slowly and deeply. Fill your lungs deep down with air.

Focus your attention on your breathing by

-inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth

-listening to the flow of air in and out

-being aware of the difference in temperature between air going in and air going out

Be aware of tension in specific parts of your body. Mentally fill that part with clean white light as you breathe in. Carry away stress as you breathe out.

Muscle Relaxation: a technique based on the principle that a muscle becomes more relaxed if it is first tensed uncomfortably. Use Version A at home, especially to help you get to sleep the night before an exam, and Version B during the exam.

Version A

Sitting or lying in a comfortable position, close your eyes and breathe slowly and deeply (as above)

Tighten, hold for 5-10 seconds, and then relax one muscle group at a time. Begin with your toes and move up through your calves, thighs, buttocks, abdomen, chest, back, shoulders, hands, arms, neck, face, forehead and jaw.

Continue to breathe deeply as you systematically relax your body. Try to keep body parts you have already relaxed in that condition as you tense new muscle groups.

Version B

With your arms at your sides as you sit on your chair, grasp the underside of the seat of your chair and try to lift it off the floor (Of course, you can't! Hold this position, tensing your arms and shoulders, for 5 seconds. Then let go and relax.

Visualization

Imagine yourself in a relaxing place: lying on the beach, walking in the forest, sitting by a campfire. Imagine what you see, smell, hear.

Practice escaping to your fantasy place whenever you want to reduce stress.

You can also visualize yourself at the exam, staying calm, using effective test taking strategies, and being SUCCESSFUL.

How To Keep Calm During Tests

1. PREPARE WELL IN ADVANCE. Keep up day to day, if you can; but don't judge yourself harshly if you don't. Avoid last-minute cramming. Don't go without sleep the night before (though 4 or 5 hours may be enough). Stop studying an hour or so before the test and relax and compose yourself.

2. KNOW TIME AND PLACE of the test and what you need to bring. Be on time, neither too early nor too late, with blue books or supplies. Don't rush.

3. DON'T TALK ABOUT THE TEST with classmates immediately beforehand, if you know it raises your anxiety level. To do so may nourish group paranoia.

4. Read over the test and PLAN YOUR APPROACH. Ascertain point values per part, time limits for each section, which question you'll start with, etc.

5. Don't hesitate to ASK FOR CLARIFICATION from the professor, teaching assistant, or proctor if you have questions about directions, procedure, etc., rather than letting anxiety build up because you aren't sure about what you are expected to do.

6. DEVELOP AN AGGRESSIVE, YET REALISTIC ATTITUDE. Approach the test vigorously determined that you will do your best; but also accept the limits of what you know at the moment. Use everything you know to do well; but don't blame yourself for what you don't know.

7. ACTIVITY REDUCES ANXIETY. If you go blank and can't think of anything to write, go on to another question or another part of the test. On an essay, jot down anything you can recall on scratch paper to stimulate your memory and get your mind working.

8. RELAX YOURSELF PHYSICALLY during the test, if you notice that you are not thinking well or are tight. Pause, lay your test aside, and take several slow, deep breaths. Concentrate on your breathing. Do this if you notice that you are worrying excessively about one problem, not reading carefully, forgetting information you know.

9. PAY ATTENTION TO THE TEST, not to yourself or others. Don't waste time worrying, doubting yourself, wondering how other people are doing, blaming yourself, etc. Don't worry about what you should have done; pay attention to what you can do now.

If you suffer from test anxiety, the following four methods may help you reduce the stress:

1. Learn to relax. Think tranquil thoughts of beautiful places, or use slow, deep breathing prior to and during the test or performance situation.

2. Monitor your thinking patterns. For example, counteract negative thoughts with positive ones and rationalize the situation in proper perspective. Remember, if you do fail a test, it's not the end of the world.

3. Improve study and test-taking skills.

4. Take time to exercise. This is an easy and healthy way to reduce stress. You must take time to exercise; it will be worth the effort. Not only will you feel refreshed mentally, but also physically.

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