The Center on Education Policy states that by 2012, more than 74% of the nation's students will be required to pass a high school exit exam as condition of eligibility for graduation. If you are among this growing group of students, don't panic. You don't have to go back and find every note from every class you've sat through for the past four years. You just need to develop a plan to review major concepts in each subject and brush up on your test taking strategies.
High school graduation examinations are, with the exception of writing sections, standardized tests. This means questions are written so there is only one right answer, with no room for subjective interpretation. You can use this to your advantage- such tests have a limited number of possible answers, and the questions often contain clues. Of course, the best test-taker in the world cannot score well if he or she doesn't know the content. But assuming that you have studied the material that will be on the test, consider the following test-taking tips:
* Read all of the directions and the test questions carefully. You would be surprised at how many students lose points on standardized tests because of careless mistakes that could easily have been avoided. Don't read part of the question and assume that you know what the rest of it says.
* Preview the test to decide how much time to spend on each section. In some cases, you will only be allowed to work on one section at a time. If so, you can skim to see which ones you will want to work on first (see next two tips.)
*Work on the 'easiest' parts first. Multiple choice questions are usually worth the same amount of points each, so do the ones you are certain of first. This will both build your confidence and guarantee that you don't lose points on any questions that you know, simply because you run out of time. Matching questions are a great place to start, as they will often give you some reminders of important terms or concepts that may help you with other questions.
* In the event that you don't know an answer, guess, provided you won't be penalized for incorrect responses (this is true for most high school exit exams.) Particularly if you can eliminate one or more answers, you have a good chance of getting points this way.
* If possible, give yourself time at the end to review your test. Check that you haven't accidentally skipped any questions, and go back to any that you wanted more time to think about.
* If you do not know the answer to a question: First, try to eliminate obviously wrong answers.
- If one of the test answers is a lot longer than another one, choose it.
- If an answer is more generic than all the others, choose it.
Perhaps the most important tip of all is to relax. Worrying will not improve your test score. If you have prepared and you can employ smart testing strategies, the odds are in favor of a successful outcome.
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