Follow this six-step process and your test scores might improve
Daughter 1.0 is in second grade now. She had homework for the first time last night — math, but not common core, so I do not need an alibi for any local homicides.
As we walked to the bus stop this morning, I noticed that she was walking more on her toes than on her heels. She told me that she was nervous because she might have a pop quiz.
Now, I have never been worried about a test. I have passed spelling tests without knowing the words, and I have failed tests where I thought I knew everything about the material, but I have never worried.
But as you can tell by looking at my socks, I am not Daughter 1.0. So I will have to teach her how to simply relax and pwn tests. These are the steps I take:
1) Write your naaaaaaaame on the thing.
You are about to get a perfect score on this puppy. You want the teacher to know exactly who tf just killed that curve.
2) Read the first problem.
Can you answer it pretty easily? If so, do. If not, move on to the second problem.
3) Read the second problem.
If it’s easy, do it. If it’s not, skip it.
4) Continue like this until you’ve read the entire kcufing thing.
You’ve skipped probably half the questions.
And that is THE POINT.
Your test paper SHOULD look like you went one-two-skip-the-whole-third-row.
Why?
Because while everyone else is on their third attempt to solve question seven or whatever — which is worth just as many points as every other question — you’ve picked the fruit that’s not even hanging low. It’s on the ground. It’s the easiest stuff in the test, and you have banked those points.
Starting in about third grade, and up through college, I witnessed this specific scene in class every time a teacher gave back a test:
“What? How did I only get a [low grade]? … oh NOOOO! I didn’t even get to the last five problems!”
But you did. You skipped question 15, which was thoroughly tricksy, and zoomed through questions 16–20 instead.
This phenomenon of not finishing the test because you run into a tough question is particularly common when the test has multiple sections, each of which might start with easy stuff before getting into harder material. In that situation, question 10 might be meant to round out the geometry section, meaning that question 11 — the beginning of the next section — is relatively easy.
One other key thing happens when you skip ahead, and a second is likely:
A) Your brain is busy working on the solutions to those harder problems.
For my geometry final exam, mumble years ago (cell phones were uncommon, and the high school computer lab had a few color monitors and several black-and-white ones), the final question consisted of “prove this incredibly obvious thing that is also tricky-hard.”
As I soon discovered, the solution hinged on a theorem I couldn’t remember. So I went about and did the rest of the exam, then went back to that question. A bit of noodling later, I realized what was missing and proceeded to write basically three-quarters of the proof as fast as my hand could go.
This is because my brain didn’t stop working on that hard problem. I moved on to other things, then came back to that big one.
That habit helped me every time I took a test after that.
B) A surprising number of answers and hints to earlier problems can be found later in the test.
This is true especially for literature and science tests, but it applies to every subject of study. Whether teachers put answers at the end to reward students who try hard, whether they’re too tired to realize what they’re doing or whether they simply can’t keep information in the third part of the test from being answers in the first part, you can legitimately get answers to early questions from later questions. My favorite is when the essay prompt reveals the name of a minor character who turns out to be the answer to one of the first five questions.
5) Go back through the test and work on the questions you didn’t answer the first time. They’ll be easier now.
6) Check your work twice. Don’t lose points on silly mistakes.