How to Take a Test

If you find that you freeze up when it's time to take a test, your entire educational process may be harmed. Test taking is one way that most teachers or institutions judge your capabilities to learn and your qualifications on a subject, so knowing how to take a test gives the best reflection of what you actually know.

Instructions

1. Pretend that you're the teacher and are writing a test. Create 100 questions about the material that you will be tested on, then test yourself. Make certain that the answers are listed on a separate piece of paper with a reference page.

2. Relax on the day of the test. Once you're in the testing room, you can do nothing more to prepare. Worrying when you can do nothing more to improve your chances of scoring high on the test will affect your performance. Make certain that you have a watch and pencils.

3. Scan the material for easy questions to answer first.

4. Know how the test is scored. Most classroom tests give you points for correctly answered questions and no penalty for incorrectly answered questions. However, some tests are scored to deduct points for incorrectly answered questions. If you're taking a test scored in this way, only answer the questions you're fairly confident about and leave those you honestly don't know blank.

5. Answer questions rapidly. This may sound like a bad idea at first, but it gives you time to get through each question twice. Don't procrastinate on one question. Answer it if it isn't an essay question and hash mark it to come back.

6. Return to any questions you marked after you answer everything on the test that you're confident about. Completing the whole test may have given you insight into these questions.

7. Review each your answer to each question in order at least once if there's time. If you go rapidly enough through the questions, don't hand your paper in if there's time on the clock. Instead, go through each question to check if you still agree with your answer.

8. Make the test into a game. If you're playing a strategy game, you usually don't think of consequences of losing, since there are none. Frequently good test takers consider the test as a game to be tackled, and keep a cool head.