Do you want to ace your next test? Test taking strategies are the key. Test preparation is important, but it won’t do much good if you don’t know how to take a test. This blog post will give an overview of some powerful techniques for acing tests that have helped many students in the past.
There are four major strategies that we will talk about today:
The first category is test preparation before the actual exam happens. This category can be further broken down into several topics. Going over what’s on the test can be key to reducing test anxiety. If you want to ace your next test then you need to know exactly what’s going on inside that classroom or testing center as well as how it will affect your performance on the test. You’ll want to understand how the test works; do you lose points for wrong answers? Is the test a computer adaptive test? (questions get harder or easier based on correct or incorrect answers)? Will there be an essay question or just short answer? Are you able to go back to questions that that you’re unsure of? Understanding this format will help you understand how to answer and help relieve anxiety during your test taking. The good news is that a typical standardized test has this information readily available.
Another way to reduce anxiety is to ensure you understand the material. Munkle.it is the easiest and fastest way to learn; try us out for $0.00 and you won’t be worried about passing that important test. There are several things we do to give you the confidence to you need and make sure you’re not wasting your time on things you know. By understanding what you have mastered, vs what you still need to work on you’ll be focused on the material that will improve your score the most.
Our next test prep strategy is more about optimizing your efforts, and that is time boxing your prep for the test. If a test is something that you control the timing on (like a certification or license test), and there is little penalty to having to retake, then you should consider being aggressive in how you schedule it. For example, let’s say a retest costs $50, and there’s no retake penalty. You shouldn’t spend too long studying for it as it’s costing you more than it would if you were paying yourself an hourly rate for studying. This specific strategy has helped many people not spend extra weeks studying for a test they were dreading.
The final category is how well you handle the exam itself once the test day arrives.
Test taking strategies include techniques like setting a timer to keep track of your time, taking deep breaths throughout the test, and using other techniques that will help you maintain composure under pressure. Here are a few other ways to optimize your answers, even if you aren’t sure about the exact answer:
1. When you read the question, try to guess the correct answer before reading the options
2. Eliminate obviously wrong answers
3. Number based questions frequently have answers that are too small or too large to be the correct answer
4. If there are two answers that are opposite, it’s most likely one
5. Reread the question – sometimes you misread a question on the first pass or see new information after reading it a second time
6. If possible, mark or flag hard questions and come back to them before you spend too long on them. Sometimes other questions will give you the answer or clues to the answer on questions.
Another way to reduce anxiety is to ensure you understand the material. Munkle.it is the easiest and fastest way to learn; try us out for $0.00 and you won’t be worried about passing that important test. There are several things we do to give you the confidence to you need and make sure you’re not wasting your time on things you know. By understanding what you have mastered, vs what you still need to work on you’ll be focused on the material that will improve your score the most. You can signup here
Our next strategy is more about optimizing your efforts, and that is time boxing your prep for the test. If a test is something that you control the timing on (like a certification or license test), and there is little penalty to having to retake, then you should consider being aggressive in how you schedule it. For example, let’s say a retest costs $50, and there’s no retake penalty. You shouldn’t spend too long studying for it as it’s costing you more than it would if you were paying yourself an hourly rate for studying. This specific strategy has helped many people not spend extra weeks studying for a test they were dreading.
The final category is how well you handle the exam itself once the actual time for tests arrives. Test taking strategies include techniques like setting a timer to keep track of your time, taking deep breaths throughout the test, and using other techniques that will help you maintain composure under pressure. Here are a few other ways to optimize your answers, even if you aren’t sure about the exact answer:
1. When you read the question, try to guess the correct answer before reading the options
2. Eliminate obviously wrong answers
3. Number based questions frequently have answers that are too small or too large to be the correct answer
4. If there are two answers that are opposite, it’s most likely one
5. Reread the question – sometimes you misread a question on the first pass or see new information after reading it a second time
6. If possible, mark or flag hard questions and come back to them before you spend too long on them. Sometimes other questions will give you the answer or clues to the answer on questions.