Test-taking skills…why isn’t there a class solely devoted
to this? In my opinion, there should be. These standardized tests being
handed out, even for children in middle school, are much more difficult than you
would think. Now I’m not sure if teachers still follow this protocol (it’s been
9 years since middle school for me), but next time your child comes home with a
test for you to sign, try taking it. They aren’t as simple as we’d like to
think, and even for children who study for days before a big test, a lack of
test taking skills could land them a below average grade. Test-taking skills
are especially helpful for students with disabilities and reading difficulties.
But trust me when I say that the tips I’m about to review will be helpful for
any student, even up into their college years.
There have been times in my life where I was a great test
taker. Other times, when anxiety hit, I’d make foolish moves on tests (like not
reading directions carefully enough) that I wish I could take back. As an English
student in college, I recall a drastic improvement in my test taking abilities.
I’d would read a question, and keywords would immediately pop out at me; key
words that triggered memory recall from my studies. And the answer would become
immediately apparent. I remember I took an introductory class for poetry, a
class in which we read over 200 poems by over 30 different posthumous poets.
For our final, we had roughly 50 different one-liners given to us, and we were
expected to know the name of each poem these lines were excerpted from, the
poet who wrote them, and the year they were written. The class and especially the midterm were difficult,
and so our professor promised all students an A for the entire semester given
we scored a perfect grade (seemingly impossible) on this last test. I had a friend named Grace
in that class, who sat right next to me during the test. The directions were
simple, but the poems we read (and we were made to study ALL 200) were
sometimes 50 lines long, and we were expected to recall just 1 line from each. As I
read each “question”, each choppy line of poetry, keywords immediately popped
out at me and I breezed through this exam within 20 minutes (out of the given 2
hours). I handed my professor my exam, who looked at me with this “you give
up?” expression, and I walked out at least an hour before the next student
finished up. Grace told me he immediately graded my paper and proclaimed, in
front of the whole class as they banged their heads on their desks, “Tim is the first to ever ace this exam—in 20 minutes
no less—and will be given an A for the entire semester." I’d have landed a B-
were it not for this test (his midterm was a killer).
I digress. Your child has these capabilities just waiting to
be mastered. Test taking these days is much more about memory recall than it is
conceptualization, especially in middle school and high school. Don’t get me
wrong, if you can help your child conceptualize their school work, it may be
his/her best bet to acing their exams. But memory and word recall is also so crucial. Aside from language skills being paramount in developing strong test
taking skills, there are many other ways to help your student out. Teach them to utilize these tips and they're sure to improve (unless they're already straight-A students).
Review the entire
test before beginning. Skim it, at the very least. Make sure you understand
what is expected from each section. Know
the time allotted for the test. After reviewing each section, estimating
how long each will take. Tackle the sections you know you’ll do best in first;
leave the more challenging ones for last. Don’t be surprised if the sections you firstly tackle clue you in on other answers. Know
the point value of each question. That is, if they are given, at least. This
helps you prioritize the time you spend on each question. Follow directions to the T. This is self-spoken, but often not
recognized as extremely important. Notice key words in instructions,
questions, and answers. It’s also a good idea to associate key words in
your studies. This might be hard to explain, but it’s simpler than you think.
I’ll make an example: e=mc2.
E=energy, M=mass, and C=the speed of light. Let’s say your physics
teacher takes this equation, and puts it in words (most likely won’t happen),
asking you what energy multiplied by mass equals. Well, it equals the speed
of light times the speed of light, of course. Reread directions and questions for clarity. If you don’t understand
it, reread it. And if rereading it doesn't clarify it, call your teacher for a
rephrase. My Earth Science teacher liked me so much, she would point
to the answer for me (shhh, I would have failed and she thought me too hilarious to flunk). Check off
questions you don’t know and return
to them later. Who knows, another question might clue you in on the answers to the questions left behind. Give it a chance. And finally, review the test before you hand it in! Big tests can give students
high anxiety, and so when they finish, they just want out. Impress on your
child how important it is to review before handing in. They may find a mistake
or two, or they may stumble upon a question they
initially made their best guess on only to realize (after answering a similar
question later on) that it’s not the best answer.
And there you have it: 8 great tips for developing strong test
taking skills. Teach these to your children or students, and even if you don’t
see improvement right away, it will help them out big time, even during
college. As I finish up this blog, I find myself wishing I could go back four
years and retake every test. These tips would have surely helped out my GPA.
Resources
Prince, Audrey W., CCC-SLP. Super Duper® Publications (2008) Handy Handouts: Activities for Developing Test Taking Skills
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