Exam Tips & Tricks - A Must Read For All Students
- Do the multiple choice items first if your exam has types of questions other than multiple choice.
- READ the whole question AND answers carefully.
- Read the question and scan the answers. Eliminate obviously wrong answers.
- Be careful of "all of the above" and "none of the above" questions. These are sometimes the correct choice but are also often used as a distractor to confuse students. Be sure the choices available pertain to the question. Sometimes correct statements are included that have nothing to do with the question you're working on.
- Beware of negatives. If a negative such as "none", "not", "never", or "neither" occurs in the question then you're looking for a "catch". Read these carefully and be positive you understand the question. There will be an answer that matches even if your thinking is backwards.
- Words such as "every", "all", "none", "always", and "only" are superlatives that indicate the correct answer must be an undisputed fact.
- "Usually", "often", "generally", "may", and "seldom" are qualifiers that could indicate a true statement.
- Answer the questions without assuming too much. Don't be led astray by overanalyzing. Read the question and assume all the information is there for a reason. Ask for clarification if needed.
- What about when it's down to two possible answers?
- Responses that use absolute words, such as "always" or "never" are less likely to be correct than ones that use conditional words like "usually" or "probably."
- "Funny" responses are usually wrong.
- "All of the above" is often a correct response. If you can verify that more than one of the other responses is probably correct, then choose "all of the above."
- "None of the above" is usually an incorrect response, but this is less reliable than the "all of the above" rule. Be very careful not to be trapped by double negatives.
- Look for grammatical clues. If the stem ends with the indefinite article "an," for example, then the correct response probably begins with a vowel.
- The longest response is often the correct one, because the instructor tends to load it with qualifying adjectives or phrases.
- Look for verbal associations. A response that repeats key words that are in the stem is likely to be correct.
- Play the old Sesame Street game "Which of these things is not like the other?" Sometimes the distracters will be very similar to trick students into thinking the choice is between one or the other. The answer will be something unrelated.
- Did you miss the question because you were unprepared? Study more carefully.
- Did you misread the question? Take your time.
- Did you know the answer but panic? Be well prepared, it promotes confidence.
- Try to see what the instructor was looking for with each question: Recognition? Analysis? Synthesis based on understanding? Then adjust your studying.
The Multiple Choice Exam
Often students anticipate their first multiple choice exam to be simply a matter of recognizing true statements. However, experience with these exams shows students that they are often asked to do more than just recognize textbook material. Multiple choice questions, they learn, require fine distinctions between correct and nearly-correct statements. They learn that these distinctions are not only of Recognition, but are distinctions that involve the thinking for Synthesis, Analysis, and Application. These higher-order thinking questions sometimes make the content of the questions unrecognizable. Besides not being fully prepared for these types of thinking questions, students often read the questions carelessly. Therefore, it is to the students' advantage to learn about the thinking required to answer multiple choice questions and to learn how to read the questions carefully.
Preparing/study for multiple choice exams
A.Take a Learning Skills course to learn:
i) how to recognize the various levels of learning that are tested in multiple choice questioning;
ii) how to use new strategies for learning, remembering, and thinking.
B. Join or form a study group to practise making and answering multiple choice questions of various levels.
C. Study old exams. Examine each question to determine:
i) the level or type of thinking required of you (recognition, synthesis, analysis, application);
ii) the degree of difference between incorrect and correct alternatives.
D. When studying the material consider groups of facts or groups of ideas that are similar in meaning. While learning each group, pay special attention to the differences among the facts and ideas within each group. It may be effective to think of each fact or idea in terms of what each means or includes and what each does not mean or does not include. For a concept, consider what is necessary or sufficient to include. How do two similar concepts differ? Why is that difference important?
Writing Multiple Choice Exams
1.Do the multiple choice items first if your exam has types of questions other than multiple choice. Just reading the stems and alternatives acts as a warm-up to the material. (The stem is the question and the alternatives are the choices). Also, the ideas embedded in these multiple choice questions will fuel your thinking for doing the other parts of the exam.
2.Read the directions carefully. The directions usually indicate that some alternatives may be partly correct or correct statements in themselves, but not when joined to the stem. The directions may say: "choose the most correct answer" or "mark the one best answer." Sometimes you may be asked to "mark all correct answers."
3.Often you are required to answer up to 70 multiple choice questions in an hour or less. (Some have 200 questions to answer in 3 hours). This means you may have less than a minute, on average, to spend on each question. Some questions, of course, will take you only a few seconds, while others will require more time for thought. Plan to progress through the exam in three ways:
– Read every question carefully but quickly, answering only those of which you are 100% certain. Put a "?" on those that need more thought.
– Then, examine/study the questions not yet answered. Answer those you are reasonably sure of without pondering too long on each. Erase the "?"
– Finally, study read the remaining unanswered questions. If you cannot come to a decision by reasoning or if you run out of time, guess. Erase the "?". Note that some examinations penalize "guessing" by subtracting points for incorrect answers. Check with your instructor. If there is no penalty, then a guess is better than a blank.
4. Use the process of elimination procedure. Eliminate the obviously incorrect alternatives.
5. Read all of the stem and every alternative.
– Read the stem with each alternative to take advantage of the correct sound or flow that the correct answer often produces. Also, you can eliminate any alternatives that do not agree grammatically with the stem.
– Some students find it effective to read the stem and anticipate the correct alternative before actually looking at the alternatives. If you generally do better on essay exams, this strategy may help you a great deal. Our research shows that one is three students scores better with this strategy alone!
6. Consider "all of the above" and "none of the above." Examine the "above" alternatives to see if all of them or none of them apply totally. If even one does not apply totally, do not consider "all of the above" or "none of the above" as the correct answer. Make sure that a statement applies to the question since it can be true, but not be relevant to the question at hand!
7. Note negatives. If a negative such as "none", "not", "never", or "neither" occurs in the stem, know that the correct alternative must be a fact or absolute and that the other alternatives could be true statements, but not the correct answer.
8. Note superlatives. Words such as "every", "all", "none", "always", and "only" are superlatives that indicate the correct answer must be an undisputed fact. In the social sciences, absolutes are rare.
9. Note qualifying words. "Usually", "often", "generally", "may", and "seldom" are qualifiers that could indicate a true statement.
10.Study Qualifications. Break the stem down into grammatical parts. Pull out the bare subject and verb (if it is in the stem), and then examine all the modifiers (qualifiers) to the subject and verb. This process ensures that you will examine every part of the stem.
11.Changing Answers. Research has shown that changing answers on a multiple choice or true-false exam is neither good nor bad: if you have a good reason for changing your answer, change it. The origin of the myth that people always change from "right" to "wrong" is that those (i.e. the wrong ones) are the only ones you will see when you review your exam – you won't notice the ones you changed from "wrong" to "right."
Following-up after your exam has been returned
Study your marked and returned exam in order to learn from your successes and mistakes, and to improve your performance on the next exam. This will pay dividends on future exams.
1. Examine each question you did get correct. Remember how you knew that the information was important when you studied. How did you study?
2. Examine each question you did not get correct in order to understand the find distinction between the correct alternative and the incorrect alternatives. Ask yourself why the correct answer is correct and why the other alternatives are incorrect.
3. Determine the level of thought your instructor expects of you by reading through all of the questions. Are you expected to recognise, analyse,synthesise and/or apply the material that has been presented to you? Study accordingly for the next exam.
Rules when taking tests:
Merely reading the questions and possible answers will stimulate your thinking. Sometimes the ideas in the questions will get you thinking about other parts of the exams. You may even find hints in one question that will help you answer other questions.
What are the directions for the question? Questions may direct you to "Choose the false statement." , "Choose the true statement." or "Choose the best answer". Some options may be "All of the above" or "None of the above". Make sure you know what the question wants you to do.
Time is sometimes short during exams. Longer exams require some time management. Here are some tips:
Answer the questions you are confident about first. (READ carefully though) Mark the ones you have not answered; do them later.
Next, work on the questions that you can answer with a little thought. Save the really tough ones for later. Erase the mark when done.
Lastly work on the questions that are left. There should only be a few remaining. Work on them as you have time. Don't leave any blank.
Some students do well by reading the question and then try to answer it without looking at the choices. Students who do well on essay exams can use this to advantage. One in three students can score better with this strategy alone.
Ask how the two answers differ (just the answers, ignore the question), maybe jot down how the two answers differ. Then look at the question again and ask yourself "how is this difference important for this question?" If you really think there's absolutely no difference between the two answers (e.g. just two words that mean the same thing), then look again at the answers you've eliminated - maybe one of them is actually the correct one.
Read the question over separately with each separate answer. Cover up all the other answers as you read the question over separately with each specific answer. This reduces the distracting effects of the wrong answers and can make it easier for you to see intuitively which answer makes better sense.
**Other possible tricks:
(Caution: a clever instructor will use these generalizations to actually trick the students into thinking they are being clever, when they are actually falling into a trap)
Following-up after your exam has been returned
Meet with the professor to go over the exam. Look for patterns in your wrong answers.
