|
Go
Back to Part 1
Developing
a study strategy
Once you know all of the relevant information about the test, it's time
to develop a study strategy. Presently, the focus will be on study strategies
related to multiple choice exams, but you may also find our article on
Ultimate Study Strategies useful
for general study skills.
Start
early
Whether you believe that multiple choice exams are easy or hard, it is
always easy to find reasons not to study, especially for multiple choice
exams. For those of you who are particularily suceptable to procrastination,
you may wish to visit our article on Beating
Procrastination. By forcing yourself to start early, you can therefore
ensure that the material receives the attention it requires. Starting
early helps spread out material into smaller chunks which are easier to
absorb than large quantities of crammed information. It also helps build
up confidence and establish a study schedule. Once you are used to doing
something, it will be harder to give up.
Generally,
you will want to be constantly preparing and reviewing for material as
the year goes on, but as the test approaches you will shift into a more
intense study mode. We recommend that you determine how much time you
will need to study by estimating how long you believe you need to study
and multiplying this number by 1.5. This will help prepare for unplanned
for events, and ensure that your marks do not suffer too much when you
take the odd break.
Try to
identify information that will make good multiple choice questions
Students sometimes try to memorize every detail in their notes, but by
learning to identify likely multiple choice questions you can ensure that
you know the “right” information. By asking questions about
what material will be covered on the test, you will know whether you need
to memorize the birth date of every person that is mentioned in the textbook,
or if you only need to know the major theories they formulated. Aditionally,
if you come across three or four important theories that are all related
but that posess important differences, you should spend enough time ensuring
you know how to differentiate one of the theories from the others.
Visit
your academic advisor or a peer counselor
Your university undoubtably has an academic advisor or a peer counselor
you can go and talk to about improving your performance on multiple choice
exams, so make use of this service! These people have received special
training to help you improve your performance, and they can also help
tailor specific strategies for you personally. Their services are generally
provided free of charge, so make good use of them!
Writing the test: Use the multiple choice exam format to your advantage
Your study time is over, and its time to write the exam. Nevertheless,
there are still a few useful techniques you can apply when writing the
exam to maximize your performance.
Answer
the questions you know the answer to first
Don’t get stuck on a question when you don’t know the answer.
Skip it and come back later if you have time. You may have heard of this
strategy before, but it is especially important on a multiple choice exam.
Generally, every question is worth the same number of points as every
other on a multiple choice exam, so it doesn’t matter whether you
get the answer the ten hardest or the ten easiest questions. Answering
the questions you know the answers to will help boost your confidence
and relieve stress, as well as giving you a better estimate of how much
time you can allocate to the questions you aren’t sure of. It is
not uncommon for multiple choice masters to finish half of the exam in
one third of the exam time, and then dedicate the remaining two thirds
of the time to answering the harder questions.
Use the
“all of the above” answer to your advantage
If a question features an “all of the above” choice, use this
to help eliminate other choices. If you see an answer you know is false,
you can rule out that answer, and the “all of the above” answer.
This can be useful when you aren’t sure of an answer, or you are
trying to eliminate answers before you make an educated guess. This technique
also applies to answers such as “none of the above, a) and b) of
the above,” and so on.
Re-check
your answers
Once you have finished your exam and are satisfied with your answers,
recheck your exam. Depending on how much time you have, you may be able
to check your answers to all the questions, but at the bare minimum you
should check to make sure that you have answered every question (even
if you guessed), and that you copied all of your answers to the scantron
card properly if you are using one. Nothing is worse than knowing the
right answer and failing to copy it properly.
Guess if you don’t know
Unless you are going to be penalized for getting the wrong answer, guess!
If you can, try and eliminate the answers you’re sure are wrong,
and guess from amongst the remaining answers. You can come back to the
question later on and think about it some more if you have time. However,
try to be honest with yourself. If none of the material is familiar with
you after having read the test a few times, don’t torture yourself
on that single question. It is better to accept that you didn’t know
one of the questions than to start second-guessing all of your answers.
**Disclaimer**
The folloing strategies can sometimes help you make a better guess if
you don’t know the answer, but should only be considered as a last
resort.
**Warning** Look for keywords in the question that also appear in one
of the choices
If you don’t know an answer, look to see if key words from the question
are repeated in one of the choices. Take the following question for example:
Which of
the following is an example of a nuclear reaction:
a) Exothermic transformation
b) Nuclear fission
c) Chemical transfusion
d) all of the above
“Nuclear”
appears in both the question and in b), so all other things being equal,
you might consider guessing b). Remember that this is not a sure-fire
method though, and your guess is not necessarily right.
**Warning**
Look for punctuation that might indicate a specific answer
Sometimes when professors are writing their exam, they come up with the
question and the right answer, and then look for a few distractor items
to catch students who did not study the material properly. Look for punctuation
and grammatical rules that only work with one of the answers, such as
“a” versus “an”, or singular versus plural. Take the
following question for example.
The brain
stem is a:
a) old part of the brain that serves no purpose
b) anthropomorphic description of our nervous system
c) central part of our brain, governing important biological functions
Only c) makes
grammatical sense after “an”, so if you have no idea which answer
is correct, going with the grammatically correct answer may earn you an
extra point. Again, this is a risky strategy that is not guaranteed to
work.
Conclusions
and The UniversityAdvice.com bottom-line:
Multiple choice exams are sometimes misrepresented by the student body,
which can lead to students performing poorly on multiple choice exams.
However, there are several strategies that can be used to help students
do better, as outlined above. These strategies, combined with a good general
study strategy, can help you score those extra points and make writing
multiple choice exams a much more pleasant university experience.
Go
Back to Part 1
|
