Improve Your Performance on Standardized Tests

Test week creates an atmosphere of stress, because the results are critical. Students fear that test results – especially those from their high school years – may impact negatively on their ability to graduate or obtain a college education. Teachers and administrators know that results equate to funding, which in turn equates to jobs gained or lost. Everyone has a stake obtaining in positive outcomes.

The newest twist on these tests is are the “essay” or “think” portions of the tests. These are interspersed with multiple choice questions, and require the student to write short answer responses on a specific topic, extract information from a reading passage and process that information effectively in order to answer questions about the passage. Even math has its share of “essay questions,” in which the student verbally explains components and processes involved in mathematical equations. Real-live humans score these answers, and those humans are trained to look for some specific indicators of learning. The following information details the kinds of things scorers look for, common mistakes and errors students make, and what NOT to do if you are taking one of these tests.

READING, SOCIAL STUDIES AND SCIENCE

Reading, social studies and science questions involve reading an article or a piece of fiction, and then answering questions that relate to the piece. Questions about nonfiction articles tend to emphasize facts and data – who, what, when, where, why and how. Questions covering the fiction sections may ask for some factual information, but tend to look more for feelings, personality traits or other intangibles that are expressed through the behavior or dialogue of the character(s). In the case of fiction or poetry, students aren’t graded on what they have gleaned from the passage; the scores rest on whether or not their explanations are text-based, clear and logical.

One of the biggest errors students make with the reading comprehension testing is that they try to answer questions from memory, rather than referencing the text. This leads to some interesting convolutions of information, and although these are entertaining for those scoring, they lower the item score. Always reference the text; this is one area in which copying (use quotation marks) is not only acceptable, but will get a higher score than trying to write things in your own words.

Another error students make is that they include information from their own experiences, from other classes or other sources. For example, on one state’s exam, the reading portion included an article on the pros and cons of the national park system. Nearly every student included a reference to SUVs and global warming in their answer, ideas that were not found in the text of the article. Clearly, these students had seen Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth recently, and melded information from that program into their answer. Unfortunately, Mr. Gore’s film was NOT part of the exam, so these students scored poorly.