#test tips

So many classes I have taken just have a midterm and then a cumulative final. And these seem so daunting and scary because it can literally make you fail the class if you do bad on one. Studying for these major exams is so stressful too. You have months of material to sift through.

It's not hopeless and you don't need to stress so much! I have some tips to help after years of stress and tears.

If your teacher relies heavily on the textbook, find the chapter summaries and use those as a guide. Those will highlight the main topics in the chapter. It will help you identify what you know well and what you need to study.

If you have quizzes in the class, study the quiz questions. Chances are the test will have some of the same or very similar questions. Teachers love to recycle.

Get a separate sheet of paper. Go through your notes and write down important dates/time frames. Make a new section. Write down important people or species. New section. Major events/key words. New section. Numbers/equations/formulas. New section. Subjects and topics covered. New section. Other important things like experiments or super important things. Congrats! You now have a set of skeleton notes with the bare bones. This is going to be your holy grail. It has all the big important information without the messy, niche details. Don't write the meanings of any of these things. Just write them in a list. Below is an example of my last start to one of these.

Review any homework assignments

Look at vocab. If you understand the vocab and when to use the words, you're in a really good spot.

Have a good understanding of all the major subjects and a really good understanding of a few main niche things from each subject.

You won't know everything and that's ok. Don't try to know everything.

☆ requested by @romantic-elegies

hey friends <3 here are some of my best memorization tips (feel free to add your own tips in the notes and I'll reblog)

study early in the morning. research has shown that studying early (6-10 am) helps you retain more information

draw a thought map. sometimes they're called spider webs, or brain dumps, or something similar. it's just an organized place to put everything that you plan on memorizing

assign meaningfullnesss to things. there has been a ton of research on this and it's a very effective way of memorizing; but sometimes it can be hard to harness. the way I recommend doing it is to assign it something you already know that you have emotional ties to (characters from your favorite show, titles of your favorite book series, food names, etc.) something that you know well enough and that will be easy/convenient to remember

use mnemonics. mnemonics are sounds/phrases that help you things. for example: ROY G BIV are the colors of the rainbow and it sounds like a name. you use the first letter of the word and come up with a different word for it or put it into a phrase.

write in blue pen. i know this tip sounds suspicious (and vaguely fake) but I've used it a million times and it works so well! plus blue is very aesthetic for your studyblr posts ;)

sleep on it. taking a short nap after studying can help you retain your information better and not stress out about it. sleep for about 15-20 minutes and you'll wake up feeling more refreshed and have an easier time remembering.

~MY BEST TIP~

pretend you're teaching the subject to someone else. use any techniques thay your teachers/professors have used she teaching you. make presentations, orally explain it (perhaps to your pet or stuffed animals), make study games. this is SO helpful and I cannot recommend it enough :)

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☆ for more studyblr content, follow my blog! @saturn-academia

☆ this post was specifically requested by one of my followers! if you have any specific study tips you'd like me to post, just send me an ask or dm me :) I also make moodboards for anyone's studyblr/personal blog so just lmk if you're interested!

This post is for my high school/college beloveds with upcoming finals (it's gonna get looong so i'm putting it under the cut <3).

Info incuded: managing test anxiety, test preparation advice, plus specific tips for multiple choice tests, standardized tests, essay tests, math tests, and reading tests.

With midterms finishing and exams coming up in December, here are some tips for performing better on tests! 

Motivation for exams can be hard to find the closer the holidays approach. However, how you manage your time during a test is half the battle! Especially if you have an exam that is a mix of multiple choice, long and short answer, using your time smartly is important. Start with the questions worth the most marks and leave short answer questions for the end. That way when you start to run out of steam you can still pump out answers to small questions in those final minutes. 

For multiple choice exams,do the questions you know well first. Start by covering up the answers to each question. Next, think in your head what the correct answer is, and then see if that option is one of the answers listed. This will hep you to be less likely to double guess yourself! If none of the options list  what you thought the answer was, leave a question like that till the end. 

Getting enough sleep is always important for performing well on a test! Instead of staying up all night cramming, start going to bed a little bit earlier 5 nights leading up to your exam. If your exam is in the morning, you can get up a little earlier then you normally do, to refresh your memory right before your test. 

If your exam is just writing an essay, make sure you’ve planned for two to three options. Usually professors will give you a list of possible essay prompts that will show up on the exam, make sure you don’t only plan for one prompt! Also when practicing writing your essays, write thesis statements and arguments that can be flexible enough to overlap with the other prompts. That way, you won’t be forcing a poorly fitted argument if you don’t see any of the prompts you liked on the exam. 

To help with your memory, create word associations to trigger definitions and concepts you need to know. This will help to reduce panic if you start to blank out on a question. For example, when studying, give each concept a character’s name from a favourite TV show. So, if you had a psychology exam, you could assign a disorder to a character who shows those traits! 

Hi! I generally think I’m good at taking tests, the way other people are good at playing instruments, reading social situations, or balancing on tiptoes (none of which I am good at). However, just as you can increase your skill in these areas, I believe you can also learn how to be a better test-taker. Although practice does play a role, I think a bigger part is identifying the cognitive processes going on while you’re testing. Once you’re aware of your thoughts, you have the power to change them because your thinking is the one thing you can control. I don’t know that my thought process is the optimal one for test-taking and this honestly may differ from person to person, but here I’ll list some things I try to consciously keep in mind that seem to work for me.

Before we begin, a note that this post will only help you be a better tester. It will not help you be more knowledgable, learn better, be wiser, or intelligent. This advice really applies best to multiple-choice tests in the vein of the SAT, ACT, and AP exams.

1. Know the material - All the test-taking tips in the world can’t help you if you don’t know what it is you’re doing. The higher-order cognitive processes described here only work by building upon your conception of the facts for evaluating what makes an answer “right” or “wrong.” 

2. Trust your gut - Usually, you will have an intuitive pull towards a certain answer before your mind steps in to rationalize that it might be something else. Don’t listen to your wavering mind! This is really important, because if your intuition is pointing you to something it is often right. Rather than being a blind guess, intuition is often based on memory you can’t quite retrieve that has unconsciously clicked into place based on context clues from the problem. Even though you haven’t internally verbalized the information, your intuition communicates it to you without your knowledge. That feeling in your gut? It doesn’t come from nowhere. I’d wager you might receive tests back and chide yourself for erasing your first guess, which was the right answer. Trust your instincts instead! Although intuition isn’t always perfect, in a testing scenario it is accurate more often than not. The only situation in which I advise going against intuition is if you can recall a specific, verbalized fact that disproves the answer your gut tells you -- not something that might prove another answer, but something that directly contradicts your first-guess answer.

3. Guilty until proven innocent - Basically, your approach to any answer should be that if it’s a little bit wrong, it’s all wrong. Instead of looking for reasons why an answer might be right, look for information that makes it wrong. It could be a single word that doesn’t quite fit in, but it’s still absolutely damning. This isn’t innocent until proven guilty; this is the Reign of Terror where you should send every possible answer to the guillotine.

4. Answer the question - An answer may be accurate, but it’s not correct if it doesn’t answer the question. Ask yourself, does the answer leave any room for doubt? Does it dance in circles? If you’re asked to analyze a chart, diagram, or passage, does the answer logically follow from the information you’re given? What specific data could you pull to support this reasoning? Are you making any underlying assumptions? If so, you probably want to pick a different answer.

5. Think like the devil - If I were a diabolical schemer rubbing my hands together, how would I design this test to ensnare unsuspecting students? This helps you identify the traps that test-makers have laid out for you, so that when you encounter one you think, “Aha! You thought you could get me, but I’m onto your plans!”

6. Pick the least common denominator - This is more often useful for teacher-written tests than standardized tests. Basically, pick the option that has the most in common with the others. For example, if the answers were

A) 2L + 6

B) 4L + 6

C) 4L + 3

D) 4L - 6

I would pick B.

7. Take a break - Honestly, standardized tests are long and tortuous. Look at the clock, the ceiling, the floor. Notice the space around you. Stretch your arms and your legs to get your blood pumping again. If this is a long (2+ hours test), honestly take two minutes every hour or so to just concentrate on your breathing. Your body was not made for sitting in a desk for hours. This helps you avoid the mid-exam slump where you feel like giving up by reenergizing your body a little instead.

8. Work for flow - You want to get in the zone. You are a test-taking beast, and nothing can stop you. Maintaining flow is important not only because it makes sure you have time to complete everything, but it also makes you feel more motivated and energized as you’re taking the test. If you give into frustration, your concentration will decline, as will your performance. Keep flow by trying to maintain a constant, steady pace. Look at the clock every 10 questions or so. If a question is too hard, skip it -- I usually bubble in an answer anyway but mark the question as one to come back to, because just seeing an empty space there throws me off. But try not to skip too many questions. This is where your intuition comes in: if you intuitively sense the answer but you’re still unsure, mark the question but bubble in your gut-check guess and keep moving. Something else that maintains flow is to answer a page of questions in the exam booklet and then transferring your responses to the answer sheet. The reasoning behind this is if you’re constantly toggling focus between the question paper and the answer sheet, you are unable to really give your attention to either. This throws you off. Instead, answer a set or page of questions first so you have a sense of logical completion and then start bubbling your answers.

Process of Elimination can be your best friend! Eliminate answers you know are wrong, then try and justify / prove the remaining answers from there! 

Re-read, every time you re-read a text you gain so much more information, at the very least skim over the text multiple times. A time crunch can really put a damper on this strategy, I am 100% aware of that! 

If looking at a comic/document, check the dates! It can give you a lot more context! 

Use context clues if at all possible! 

Trust yourself! If you have a good feeling one of these is probably “more” correct than the other options, choose that one! 

Skip the question and come back to it! Sometimes one question can answer the question you are stuck on, or can help jog your memory! 

So, I wanted to make a blog post detailing the different strategies I used to review for the LET, an exam I passed last May. For non-ph people, the LET (Licensure Exam for Teachers) is an exam a teacher needs to pass to get his/her license and register as a professional in their country. Passing the exam was one thing, but registering is a whole other journey.

Okay, so first thing’s first, I know that people would want to know how long it takes to review for a certain test--oh, and not just ANY certain test, but a freaking board exam. If you’re a teacher who’s about to take the test in September (as the test only happens twice a year, March and September), don’t worry! I’ll give you all the details down here.

It took me 1 month to review for this test. I applied for the test on February 24, and took the test on March 25(?), so it was basically the day after I applied for this exam, I started gathering my review materials. And look, if you have any doubts, now’s the time to cast it out. I reviewed for 4 weeks and passed the exam; you can too. With these tips, and some diligence, I think you’ll be set!

Now onto how I sectioned the concepts I needed to review in a week. Generally, in one week, since there are a lot of concepts to cover, I would do 2-3 subjects a day. So my week typically went like this:

Monday: English and Filipino

Tuesday: Math and Natural Science

Wednesday: Social Science and FACLERN & CHDODEV (Facilitating Learning and Child Adolescent Development)

Thursday: Teaching Profession and Curriculum Development

Friday: PTEACH and EDTECH (Principles of Teaching and Educational Technology)

Saturday: ASESLE and SOCIEDU (Assessment of Learning and Social Dimensions of Education)

And, for example, if on Monday I had to do English and Filipino, that meant that I had to take a pre-test for both subjects, write down the concepts/info I got wrong on the test, review them, and then take a post-test. I did that for every single subject, and yes it’s possible, as I was able to review for my Ateneo law exam (which was on March 24) AND work as a part-time teacher at the same time. 

I reviewed every morning before work, and every afternoon after work. 

It’s possible, but definitely not easy. It was one of the most stressful times of my life, but that was when I started to get back into bullet journaling, so I guess it was also one of the best weeks of my life. 

Okay! So to the exciting part of this post. What were the materials I used to review? If anyone’s curious, no I didn’t apply in a LET review class because it was too late for the likes of me; I only had 1 month, and I’d rather start cracking open my books than to waste my time finding a review centre that would accept me. Below are the actual materials that I used!

National Book Store LET Books

You heard me right. I didn’t have to gather a ton of review books, I just really needed two of them. The titles were, Comprehensive LET Reviewer Based on NCBTS and Table of Specifications General Education by LORIMAR Publishing, & the Reviewer for the Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET) 6th Edition by Cecilio D. Duka

You can find them I think in any NBS store in the Philippines! I got mine in Festival Mall Alabang, and they were pretty cheap! I think they were around P750 all in all. 

So, how did I use these books? Well let me tell what I didn’t use in these books. The information.

Yep, all the facts in English, the formulas in Math, the long paragraphs in Social Studies... I didn’t even bother to take a second look at them the first time I cracked open the reviewers. The very first thing I did with each of these reviewers was to rip out the answers page and go straight to the provided test. I took the test with just my stock knowledge (info I already had in my brain before reviewing) and write down my score in each test (English, Filipino, Math, Science, Social Sciences, ICT, and the professional education subjects). I did these for three reasons:

1. I know my base knowledge on these subjects.

2. I can compare my pre-test score to my post-test score.

3. I can see if I’m improving.

It’s very important to take a pre-test and a post-test when reviewing because then you’ll actually know if you’re improving! Don’t worry about the score you get in your pre-test/diagnostic exam--either way, unless you’re a genius, it’s going to be a low score. Don’t let that define you. Use that score, and the questions you’ve answered wrong, as a baseline as to where you should start. This is a great strategy because you’re tackling your weaknesses at the get-go. 

For example, you did the General Education pre-test and found out that you scored lower in Math and Science compared to the other GenEd subjects; you immediately then make those two subjects your top priority of studying before you tackle the subjects you’re already competent in. It’s a sure-fire way to know where you stand, and what you need to do to get a higher score. 

Loose Leaf Paper 

I didn’t use some special, pricey Moleskine notebook. And the reason why is because my goal wasn’t to write down everything I needed to learn and then take the test. It was sort of the other way around. I used yellow pad as an avenue to write my answers to the test provided by the books, and whichever question I got wrong, I would mark it down at the bottom of my yellow pad so I know which concepts I need to revisit. I then take another sheet of yellow pad and write all the info about the question I got wrong the first time so that the second time, I would know what the right answer is. Plain and simple.

Pens

The pens I used were the Muji 0.38 Black Gel pen and some Zebra Mildliner Highlighters. I would like to stress again though that I mostly used my black pen because all I did was answer test after test after test. I didn’t go the info-heavy route, because that would be a waste of my time. 

So on the day of my exam, I brought all the necessary stuff I needed. My documents, my wallet, my phone, earphones, food, pencils, pens, calculator, etc. 

Fun fact: I was sick for the first time in months on the day of my board exam which I had to wake up at 3am for as the venue of my exam was like on the opposite of the archipelago. 

So I also had to bring tissue or else I would’ve been too distracted and frustrated to focus. I made sure to stop reviewing though the day before my exam, so on the actual date of the LET, I wasn’t trying to rush and store some vague info about mathematical formulas because I knew I had to trust that I did my best the past 4 weeks, and rush reviewing wouldn’t do me any good anyway--it would just give me anxiety. 

The exam, I believe, would run for 4-5 hours? But I got out an hour or two earlier as I finished the exam early. The content of the exam wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, especially the Math portion, BUT I was surprised at the level of difficulty of the Science section, so I guess that balances out. 

So a couple of productivity tips:

try to bring your reviewer notes everywhere! i found this helpful because whenever i would be standing in line, waiting for something or someone, i would whip out my reviewer and try to read leisurely the information i wrote down for myself. the word here is leisurely. you don’t want to overwhelm yourself for nothing.

start bright and early! if you’re not a morning person, i think now’s the perfect time to start. if you wake up early, you can get more down quickly, therefore having less work to do in the evening when you have to wind down.

bring a bottle of water and snacks while reviewing! you’ll be using a lot of brain power, so you need to stay hydrated and full! i suggest also have iced coffee on hand if you can, as it would wake you up and give you that energy boost you need to tackle your tests.

time yourself--or don’t. it’s really up to you! i didn’t time myself as I would feel too pressured and not perform well. i just made sure to take a lot of tests so that my test-taking time perspective would slowly get used to taking tests faster and more efficiently each time. 

get encouragement from your fellow exam takers! you can find them on fb groups if that’s what you prefer; be careful though, don’t use fb as often as you’d want to when reviewing. the goal here is to be motivated and inspired, not to stay idle. 

try to review in bursts. meaning, section your review realistically with the time you have. the goal here isn’t to overwhelm, but to make most of the time you have. personally, i would do the harder subject in the morning, then the easier one in the afternoon. it would usually take me 1-2 hours for each subject. 

review in different places. if you feel lethargic reviewing in your bedroom, that’s normal! your bedroom is supposed to be a place of relaxation, not your review workshop. Try working in different areas of your house, in a coffee shop, in your car even. I used to go to Starbucks every morning when it opens to get the best seat so that I could actually look forward to the review. 

take breaks. i know. the exam’s is in 4 weeks, and you’ve got a ton of areas to cover in terms of concepts. but brute forcing your way into trying to learn every single thing about every single subject in a week wouldn’t do you any good--you, just like any other human being, are prone to burn out, and at such a crucial time, being burnt out is the last problem you need. so take breaks. take as long as you need to. i can’t tell you an exact time for how long you need a break because everyone’s different, but take a long enough break that you don’t hate yourself that much for going back to reviewing. 

handwritten? digital? up to you. use whichever medium works! i personally took the test in handwritten format so that I would get used to answering on a sheet of paper, which I would have to do on the day of my exam.

and lastly, trust the process. you can review for 24 hours everyday, buy all the highlighters and pens you need, all the notebooks to put information in, all the iced coffee in the world, but the ultimate outcome of the test isn’t in your hands. so trust me when I say to not only trust the process, but have the process be the only thing to focus on. don’t focus on the idea of passing the LET; that’s something out of your control. they could make a mistake with your name, they could’ve lost your answer sheet, they could’ve rejected your application altogether--all that are useless worries. focus on getting better everyday. focus on scoring higher and higher in each test you let yourself take. trust that you’re doing your best, and accept whatever the outcome is.