Overview

You tend to perform well on tests when you are well prepared. Ten days or more before a test, you should find out what the test will cover, and any other useful information about it. Doing so will allow you to effectively plan your study time. About eight days before an exam, begin to review your study materials. A couple of days later, you should begin to test yourself. At least four days before the exam, form study groups: explaining information to a peer is one of the best ways to learn material. Get a good night's sleep the day before and eat a good breakfast the morning of the exam. Students who get a good night's rest and eat a full meal before an exam usually score higher than those who do not.

You usually have a limited amount of time to complete a test, so you need to use your time wisely. Arrive early so that you can relax before you begin. Read all directions carefully. If you are unclear about any of the directions, ask questions. Repeatedly compare the item numbers in your test booklets and answer sheet. Do pace yourself during the test. Answer the easier items first, then go back to answer the items that you skipped. Save time to review your answers.

To help improve your exam performance, become familiar with the types of tests and test items. Most of the tests you take in school are objective tests, or tests that ask for specific information. These tests usually include multiple-choice, true-false, short-answer, fill-in, and/or matching items. The most common type of objective test item is multiple-choice. Read each multiple-choice item carefully to determine what information you are looking for. Then, read all the responses provided. Eliminate any responses that are clearly incorrect, and be cautious about choosing responses that contain absolute words, such as always and never.

Standardized tests measure your general knowledge, abilities, and interests. Results of these tests are compared with those of other students around the state or country. Standardized ability tests evaluate your general learning skills and predict how well you will do in college. Achievement tests measure your knowledge in specific content areas. Aptitude tests discover your individual talents and interests.

Standardized tests can include reading comprehension, synonym, sentence completion, English usage, sentence correction, and analogy items. Reading-comprehension items measure your ability to understand what you read. To successfully answer these questions, skim the questions before you read the passage. All of the information you need to respond will be in the passage. Then, read the passage completely before answering any questions. English usage items ask you to identify mistakes in grammar, spelling, capitalization, and word choice. Analogies test your ability to see the relationships between word meanings. Cause and effect, opposites, users, synonyms, time sequence, characteristic, and category are some common analogy relationships. The more you build your vocabulary, the better you will become at completing analogy items.