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Test taking strategies
- 1. Increasing Your Score &Not Losing Your Mind
- 3. Sleep –Hard to do but worth it Eat – Don’t overeat, but you don’t want to be distracted by feeling hungry Avoid too much sugar. Sugar rushes and drops can make things difficult. A moderate amount of caffeine is good to keep you alert Do not stay up all night cramming – particularly not useful for tests like GED, SAT etc.
- 5. Arrive earlybut not too early If you are able to, before the day of the test, scout out the location and the parking situation. Make sure you have a couple of sharpened pencils (for the current test) Wear comfortable clothes. You’ll be sitting for a while.
- 7. “I cando this” “I’m calm. I’m confident.” “I am doing fine.” “I’m prepared. I am doing my best, and my best is good” “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me” Make up one of your own
- 9. Take slowdeep breaths Tune in to the feeling of your feet on the floor Gradually relax one body part at a time Use positive self talk
- 11. Be familiarwith the test format before you get there. Look over the test Do the questions first that you are sure you know how to do Make sure if you skip questions, skip them on your answer sheet too! Read the questions carefully.
- 12. Read thequestions carefully (It bears repeating!) Keep track of your time, but don’t go crazy with this! It’s good to know if you are about half way done at the half way point. It’s not good to look at your watch every 5 minutes! Do not panic if others finish early. Who cares what they are doing??
- 13. 2-5 minutesbefore the end of the test, find each question you have not answered yet and guess. Do not second guess yourself. Most of the time your first answer is correct. Only change an answer if you know for sure you answered it wrong.
- 16. Do notpanic. Math is only 20% of the test! Be familiar with the formula page and use it whenever you need to. Be familiar with the GED calculator and use it when you are allowed to. Use estimation. Have a sense of how much the answer is. You can eliminate incorrect choices this way. Do the ones you know first. Do not try to figure out ones you have no idea about. Leave these until the end. Try them if there is time or guess.
- 18. Do notpanic! Take at least 5-10 minutes to plan. Planning is as important as writing if you want a good score. You can do a brief mind map, outline, or just jot stuff down You want to aim for 5 paragraphs with an introduction, conclusion, and 3 body paragraphs Use your experience. If you can’t think of a real life experience to use, make one up or use a friend’s. Don’t go off track or go around in circles repeating yourself Planning will prevent the above!
- 20. Some peoplelike to read the question before the passage. Get a sense of what it being looked for. You may need to re-read or you may not. Don’t assume you need to. Try to imagine what is happening – particularly with fiction and poetry. Make a mind movie. Do not try to remember every single detail. It is not a test of memorizing things. Get familiar before the test with the types of questions they ask.
- 22. Answer thequestion in your head and look for the answer that matches what you think. (Good for multiple choice questions on the writing test) For reading, social studies, and science, make sure you read all the options before you choose one. There may be two that are pretty good, and one is the best. If two options are opposite from each other, chances are one is the best one. Be careful of answers that state things in an absolute way (using words like never and always)