Any Tips for Improving test-taking skills?

REACollegePrep
Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:13:18 +0000

If your results aren’t meeting your expectations because of “a bunch of stupid errors” you may want to train yourself to take a slightly more methodical approach to how you take the test. Here are a few tips:

Skip difficult questions: If you’re working too long on a single question, mark it in your test booklet and continue with the next question. You can return to the ones you skipped after you’ve finished.

Keep in mind that if you are truly stumped, you don’t have to answer. Leave it blank! Questions left blank are not counted. Use this to your advantage.

Use the process of elimination: Start by eliminating any obviously wrong answers, then continue from there. Eliminating just two answer choices gives you a better chance of getting the correct answer out of the remaining three answer choices. But only guess if you can eliminate at least two answers.

Work backwards from the answer choices: This is helpful when you can plug choices into a given formula or equation. Often you can make an educated guess based on eliminating choices that you know do not fit the problem.

After each question, give yourself a moment to review your answer…

Make sure you’ve read all of the possible answers: If you think you know the correct answer to a question, don’t assume that your answer is automatically correct. Read through all answer choices to ensure that you are not making an error by jumping to conclusions.

Mark your answers carefully: Be sure that the answer sheet oval corresponds to the question and answer of your test booklet. Because the multiple-choice sections are graded mechanically, marking one wrong answer can throw off your answer key and ruin your score. Be extremely careful.

Hope that helps!