TESTING, TESTING

READING: HATE THE GAME, NOT THE PLAYER

We would all prefer that grading in school be on the Honor System of self-evaluation. We could use color-coded stickers or simply draw pictures to explain how we feel we did in a certain subject, and everyone would be happy every day. Unfortunately, in most schools, that's not the case.

In most schools, assessment of how well or not-well students are doing is based off of test scores. There's an entire never-ending debate in academic circles about the usefulness of test scores and how to implement them, but I'll leave that debate right where it is.

The truth is, tests are just part of the school game. Hate the game, not the player, if you know what I mean. Here's how to tackle the game, not the player:

(Yes, you should be taking notes on something like this handy dandy note-taking worksheet.)

1. Do your homework.

Yes, I mean that you should do the work your teacher assigns, but I also mean that you should take the time to get all the details about any upcoming exams. Questions like the following should have clear, defined answers well before the day of the test. In fact, the day you find out about the test is the ideal time to ask them.

• When is it? (This is a big one.)

• What format is the test? Multiple Choice, Short Answer, Fill-in-the-blank, Essay, Lab Practical?

• What content, precisely, does it cover? Just the last unit, or everything up to now?

• Are you allowed to use notes of any kind?

• How is it scored?

• Is there a curve?

• What percentage of the final grade does it count for?

• If the teacher has given the test before, are there any areas students consistently do poorly on that you could pay special attention to when you're studying?

• Is there a practice test or study guide available?

• Do you need to bring any other materials, like scratch paper?

If your teacher has a peeved look on his or her face at being interrogated like Nixon about Watergate, ignore it and forge on. You want the truth, and you can handle it better than Jack Nicholson on a witness stand in that one movie. But be polite.

2. Study.

Surprise! This is a big one too. Knowing what's involved with the test is approximately half the battle, and once you know what content the test covers, you'll know what materials to study and which ones aren't needed on this particular test. Use memory strategies, like flashcards, to get your study on.

It's also a good idea to break studying into chunks and add those chunks into your calendar. As you may know, your brain is going to remember better when you study in short, repeated sessions as opposed to a marathon night-before cram session. Cramming is no funsies, especially for grades. It also makes us cranky.

3. Do a self-assessment.

Being brutally honest with yourself may not be fun, but it pays. Sort through related assignments and projects to see where you most often lost points, and why. Maybe you have a habit of misreading questions or not labeling mathematical units, or maybe you never really understood the photosynthesis cycle in the first place.

Use your old work to find weaknesses and then—this is the important part—correct the old work. Self-correction is one of the best ways to retain information. It's better than Instagram for memories.

About two thirds of the way through your study time, take a practice test if one is available. This allows you to identify remaining weak spots to target during the last third of your study mania.

4. Think like the teacher.

This is my biggest piece of advice, pilgrims. If you remember one thing from today's lesson, it's this one. If you feel like you're drowning in a too-big pile of material to remember, mentally switch roles with the teacher. If you were going to test students to see if they understood and retained the most important information from the last unit, how would you do it? What kinds of questions would you ask? Come up with what you think would be a good, thorough test, run it by your teacher, and then use it as a study guide.

5. Get enough sleep the night before.

Since you won't be busy cramming, you'll have plenty of time to catch some Zs. We can deal with a night of too little sleep now and then, but a test day is not one of those days. It sounds weird, but prioritize sleeping over studying the night before. Also good: brainfood for breakfast in the AM. Sadly, Pop Tarts are not considered brainfood. Oatmeal on the other hand…

6. Follow the directions.

I once wrote the most amazing essay in the history of timed essays all about this one fantastic use of imagery in Madame Bovary. It was glorious, really. I had publishers calling about it. The downside was that the instructions for the essay said to discuss at least four uses of imagery. I had merely one, as good and insightful as it was. Guess what my grade was? Hint: It rhymes with "Meff."

Misunderstanding the directions can derail a good test grade in tragic, un-fixable ways. It is important, nay—vital—that you know exactly what's being asked of you. There's usually a policy in place that teachers can't help students with tests, and I'm fine with that, but that does not ever include the directions. It is always absolutely okay, and excellent, to ask for clarification on what the instructions are asking. Sometimes they're worded strangely, or there are typos, or whatever. You deserve clear instructions, and don't start until you get them.

Once you have a clear understanding of the instructions, feel free to re-phrase them in wording that is most natural to you and re-write them in big, bold letters at the top of your test or on a piece of scratch paper. Use these normal-sounding directions as your testing mantra, and check back frequently to make sure you're following them.

7. Leave time to check things over.

A second glance is sometimes all it takes to catch a random error, so leave time for it. On printed tests, I also like to mark questions as we go through them. (On digital tests, I make notes with questions numbers on a doc or sticky note.) Here's the legend:

* = unsure, come back to this

? = no clue, only come back if plenty of time left

X = definitely got this, no need to come back

If nothing else, you'll be able to walk out the room or away from that computer without the sudden panic that maybe you forgot an entire paragraph or question set somewhere. That's a good feeling. Also, if you think you're done but then realize there's still 40 minutes left in the session, really, really check back over the test—especially the directions—to see if you missed, say, an entire page of questions. It could be that you're just that brilliant (that's where my money is), but check anyway. Do it for Mom.

READING: MASTERING THE MULTIPLE-CHOICE TEST

Over here at Teach HQ, I've taken a lot of tests. It's an extreme, really over-the-top amount. I've seen every type of test question out there, but the most devious of them is the Multiple-Choice Question. Thankfully, I took some notes for you.

1. Play favorites.

Especially when all of the questions are worth the same point values, pick the easiest questions to knock out first. When time is of the essence, this helps rack up points in a hurry. With language arts and social studies, questions that ask for explicit details or cite specific events or lines take less time than the ones requiring complex inferences—especially the ones that ask "why."

When it comes to math and science, pick questions on your strongest topics to do first. Solid with triangles but iffy on spheres? Master those triangles first.

2. Watch for negation words like "NOT" or "EXCEPT"

These tip-off words mean we're going to opposite land. Since they require switching gears mentally, put a star by them and save them for last.

3. Underline (or highlight) key words in the question stem.

These could be transition words, negation words, or anything else. Read every word of the question, rephrase it mentally to simplify it, and then underline or jot down the critical parts. 

For example, consider this question: Which of these did the Constitution initially provide for?

In this example, the word "initially" tells us that we are looking for a provision that was in place before any of the others. That's a big clue. If we aren't paying attention, which we would of course never do, we could potentially arrive at the answer choices and see that all of them were things that the Constitution provided for. Then we panic. We thought we were just looking for the one thing it did! But it did all of these! Oh no!

We need to chill. Remembering the key word, we can look for the one that comes first, before those other ones happened.

4. Check in with reality.

Does your answer actually make sense? Be sure to plug it back into the sentence or problem to make sure it's not out of touch with reality, like an answer showing negative money. How do you even have negative money? That sounds awful, and like maybe a loan shark is involved.

5. Watch for tricks.

Maybe the meanest of the multiple-choice questions is the option for "Haha, got you good!" which is normally phrased as "None of the above." Yes, it is possibly a trick question, and you should entertain the idea that, if none of them seem right, that may be the case. Go with your gut instinct on this one. FYI, test questions with options for "None of the above" are excellent places to come up with your own answer first and then see if it matches any of the ones given.

6. Create a fail-safe.

If you're one of those weirdoes who doesn't take all tests on the computer, you're probably accustomed to scantrons and bubbling in those tiny bubbles. There is a nightmare scenario we should talk about. It involves arriving at the last question, good old 25, and realizing the bubble for 25 is already bubbled in…because the answer for 24 is actually on the bubble for 25, and you have no idea when this happened or how many of the bubbles are wrong.

Let's all avoid this internal hysteria by creating a fail-safe. Think of this like the redundant security alarm. As you go through a multiple-choice test, mark the answer on both the scantron and a piece of paper. This way, if your scantron ends up wonky and off-kilter, you can refer to your redundant copy to quickly fix things, as opposed to breaking down in tears with only two minutes remaining.  Note, this can also happen when you're taking a digital test; use a sticky note to do the same thing!

Also, you should probably make sure the teacher knows you're doing this so as not to think you're attempting to smuggle out a crib sheet of answers for your BFF in the next period. That could get awkward.

7. Avoid extreme answers.

Answers that go to extremes by using superlatives like "always," "never," "worst," and so on are rarely the right ones. When in doubt, stick with the nice, moderate middle ground with words like "somewhat," "mostly," and "generally."

8. Mark out definitely wrong options.

When using the process of elimination, scratch out definitely wrong answers if you are able to write on the test booklet. This limits the information your eyes need to process and cuts down on decision time. If you're on a computer, you can scratch answers out on scratch paper.

9. When in doubt, pick C.

Stats don't lie, travelers. If you have no clue whatsoever and know that points aren't deducted for incorrect answers, choose C. Instructors often feel like they need to surround the right answer with wrong answers, so C is statistically more often correct.

The exception to this rule is a computerized test where the answers are randomly ordered. In that case, there's no advantage to picking C.

Other options that are statistically more often the answer: all of the above and the longest answer.

10. Explore your options.

Plenty of multiple-choice exams have dazzling, lovely-sounding answers listed for option (A). That doesn't make them correct. In fact, this is often a trick. Don't stop at the first option that sounds good. Read all of them and pick the best one.

READING: READING COMPREHENSION TESTS

The Reading Comprehension Test falls under the "read this text and understand it, and then prove it" category of learning. It appears in many a classroom, but its natural habitat is the language arts and social studies classes.

Many a teacher has assigned the reading of chapters 4-7 for nightly homework and hoped that students actually did read it instead of watching the movie. For starters, know that the movie is almost always really, really wrong. Secondly, why should teachers hope that students read it when they can see if students read it or not? Bring out the reading comprehension test.

Reading Comprehension tests are typically composed of two different genres of questions:

• Remembering explicit details

• Making inferences

Explicit Detail Questions

They can come in multiple-choice, short-answer, true-and-false, fill-in-the-blank, or whatever else, but the basic idea is the same. Explicit detail questions ask about something that is clearly written out in black and white in the book. They may sound like "What did Mr. Featherpenny do after he spoke with Megatron?" or "Who didn't attend the fall festival?" Here, there is absolutely only one right answer, and you either remember it, or you don't.

In case you're considering hyperventilating over having to memorize every detail from cover to cover, don't.

In most cases, teachers ask these types of questions over the key events and details, rather than obscure, random ones that didn't have much bearing on the story and are easily missed. Usually.

How to Study

To prep for these types of questions, think like the teacher. Create a summary or timeline of what you consider to be the most important events—the stuff you would want to quiz your students on—and then briefly skim those corresponding sections of the text to make sure you've got the facts straight. Update your summary and study away.

Oh, and if it's a pop quiz? Ouch. Those hurt. These can and do happen, and they're a great reason to do the reading (and not the watching of the bad movie adaptation) when it's assigned. It's probably overkill to study every night for a quiz that may or may not come, but it doesn't hurt to write out a brief summary of what happened in the reading after each assignment. It also helps with the encoding of memories, so…yeah. It's a good idea.

Inference Questions

Inference questions are tougher. While explicit details require remembering something, inference questions require remembering something and then using your brain to analyze it and make an assessment about it or come to some conclusions. Compare two versions of the same question:

Explicit detail question: "What did Mr. Featherpenny do after he spoke with Megatron?"

Inference question: "Based on the reading, what can you infer about why Mr. Featherpenny did what he did after speaking with Megatron?"

Ay, there's the rub. These questions require "getting it." Explicit questions mean you were paying attention, but inference questions mean you paid attention, put two and two together, and understood it.

How to Study

Because they require unique analysis, inference questions are harder to prepare for. A good starting point is to pay attention to the concepts being covered in class at the time, since there is usually an overlap.

If tons of lecture time has been spent talking about figurative language, you can bet that you should be looking for figurative language and reasons why the author uses it in your reading. The same goes for social studies topics. There is almost, but not always, a correspondence between what's discussed in the classroom and what you should look for while studying at home. If you're still not sure, ask your teacher for a list of questions to pay attention to while reading.

Sometimes, on really bad days, a reading is way, way, disastrously above our heads. We finish the chapter or a source reading, shake our heads, and ask, "Um, what?" If you find yourself glazing over words and sentences and having no idea what's going on in general or if the book is even written in English, it's time to take a break. Step back and cover the basics.

As it so happens (it's actually not a coincidence at all), Shmoop has like a bazillion literature study guides, along with such awesome social studies guides as US History, Civics, and Economics for just that very purpose. Search for your subject du jour and get a heaping helping of background wisdom to make that analysis light bulb sizzle.

Once you've got the general idea, go back to thinking like a teacher and create a few questions you would use to see if your students "got it." Include a huge dose of "How?" and "Why?" to really get those analysis gears grinding. As for coming up with the answers, remember that an inference is only an inference if it has some evidence in the text to support it. Without evidence, an inference is just a wild guess.