Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Test Taking Tips

Greetings everybody! With the final exams soon approaching, I wanted to give you some advice and tips about how to do exams and give yourself the best chance of getting a good score.

Always answer multiple choice questions- never leave them blank!

Read the question carefully. If it says that you must write in sentences, then do it! You'll lose points if you don't even try. Similarly, if the question asks you "why" ("Who is your biggest hero, and why?"), make sure you give your opinion! Half an answer = half the points.


Look through all the exam at the very beginning to get an idea of what sections will be more difficult/time-consuming. Do the sections that you are confident with first.

Seriously, always answer multiple choice questions. Never leave them blank!

You might want to answer multiple choice questions first. This is for two reasons:
1) These are the quickest questions to answer.
2) If you run out of time at the end, it's better to finish an essay half-way rather than leave an entire page of multiple choice questions unanswered.

Look at the number of points for each section. In NP and SEEK exams, the total number of points for the section/page will be written at the top. Think about doing these sections first! For example, if the multiple choice section of the exam is worth 20 points, but the long essay section is only worth 10, then do the easier questions first to get the points 'in the bank'.

If you are allowed to use a dictionary, be careful that you don't spend too much time looking up every single word! Use the dictionary only when you have to.


On multiple choice questions, answers B and C are more likely. This is because people who write tests are less likely to put the correct answer as A (because these come first and they think people might not read all the options properly), and also less likely to choose D (because it's at the end and they think people will ignore it). It's not a huge difference, but if you really don't know then you should probably choose B or C and use it for every question!

One last time- always answer multiple choice questions and never leave them blank!

No comments: