Why am I missing easy questions

Test Preparation
1

Hello Everyone,
So in order to prep for the ACT test I have been taking a couple practice tests in my free time. In order to review the practice test, what I do is circle all the questions that I have gotten wrong and then I go back and re answer them. Every single time I do this and I literally mean EVERY SINGLE TIME I get the answer correct the second time around. Not only this, but upon reviewing my answers I see that sometimes I miss the most simplest and easiest questions. I am left perplexed as to how I could have possibly missed such easy questions the first time around. Why am I missing these questions? Has anyone had the same problem? I’m an extremely humble person and I don’t like saying that I am smart but in reality I am very smart. I can do so much better than the scores that I am getting. I have had numerous friends, parents, teachers tell me that I am on the caliber to score in the 99th percentile on the ACT tests. Friends that I know I am smarter than (I am not trying to be pretentious) are getting better scores than me. The ACT has taken a huge hit on my self confidence. Let me repeat again, in all my years living on this earth I can say with full assurance that I am capable of getting a 36 on the ACT. It’s not that I don’t have the intellect to get a good score, I am fully capable. But for some reason I am missing questions on the ACT that are child’s play. When I review the questions I got wrong, I don’t understand why I can always get the answer right the second time around. Why am I missing these questions? Can anybody help?

2

I have a similar problem and it’s usually the time pressure that throws me off. Even if it is a practice I still find myself extra stressed than when I go back and look at the question. And the questions I get wrong are the easy ones I manage to get the hard questions right and how is beyond me. Not saying that this is the case for you but I personally just get stressed taking the SAT/ACT

3

Overconfidence is a likely reason. Additionally, you might not be reading the question carefully.

4

When I helped tutor some students on standardized tests, the single biggest thing I noticed is that they tended to make snap judgments and form assumptions that were generally incorrect. This phenomenon might best be demonstrated in Critical Reading sections, although it can apply to anything, even math problems. Time and again, when they got an answer wrong, we would trace it back and it was because they had prematurely formed an opinion that was outside of the actual material presented. And, they couldn’t seem to stop.

At first, I thought it was because they were hurrying the passage and misidentifying words, so I found myself telling them to just slow down and “read what was there”. Even when we laboriously worked through the words, they would come up with off the wall conclusions.

They seemed to have some kind of a filter that went into action too quickly, completing a picture that wasn’t in keeping with the passage.

At the time, it reminded me of the test many of you may have taken in which you are handed a paper with a long list of tasks on it something like this…

 **CAN YOU FOLLOW DIRECTIONS?**

i

  1. Read everything carefully before doing anything.
  2. Put your name in the upper right-hand corner of this paper.
  3. Shout out "I'm the best in following directions!" etc., etc., ... ...
  4. Now that you have finished reading everything carefully, do only items one and two and then put your pencil down.*

Of course, in a room of 80 students, there are only a couple with their pencil down watching the antics with amazement.

So, what I learned from all of this is to read what’s there and not insert your own interpretations too quickly. Hope it helps.

5

Careless mistakes are the bane of standardized testing. In high school, it was my Achilles’ heel. I knew how to do every question, but I seemed to always make a bunch of dumb errors that cost me so many points.

Here’s what finally helped:

  1. pretend you’re the dumbest person at this (what would he do? Show his work, underline carefully, take notes, don’t skip steps, use a calculator, don’t do mental math, etc.)

  2. identify and categorize the TYPES of careless errors you’re making, such as negative signs, radius vs diameter, area vs perimeter, square vs square root, volume vs surface area, simple arithmetic, missing important keywords, making interpretations not supported by the text, etc.

  3. bracket and label the answer choices for EVERY question (at least for math). Write down what the question is asking for (what the choices represent). You’d be surprised how often you’re answering the wrong question. Like, you solve x, but it turns out the question wanted 2x, not x.

Remember, telling yourself to be more careful doesn’t make you more careful. It’s just a nice thought, but without taking physical actions, you won’t actually become more careful.

Have a checklist system in place that takes you through all the common careless mistakes, then follow it always.