The purpose of this chapter is to describe the nature of an EXAM-TAKING STRATEGY.
You should learn:
You should also study the following appendix:
It was a familiar routine to me: Stay up very late trying to cram for an exam, catch a few hours of fitful sleep, get up at the last minute, arrive at the exam late, and then race through it in order to get it over with as quickly as possible. There is no better formula for failure. This chapter is primarily concerned with the last step-taking an exam-but let us first review the earlier steps.
1. The night before an exam is too late to learn the material. Spend your normal study time insuring that you will likely remember however much you have already learned.
2. A full night's sleep is critical for consolidating your mnemonics and for supplying your brain with the substances that you need to think creatively during the exam.
3. Your brain requires at least an hour or so after sleep to reach peak efficiency; don't nap before an exam and get up in plenty of time to be wide awake and alert to the complexities of the exam.
4. Recall that your mind needs to warm up by being primed with words that are relevant to the exam. As with a lecture, the best place to do this priming is in the room where the exam will be given.
5. When you get the exam, follow those tactics that you have found work best for you. The following advice is just that; you will need to adapt these tactics to your own style and to the special circumstances of an exam.
Your overall strategy is determined by the goal of using the exam to demonstrate your knowledge of the material. An exam has a time limit and can only sample some of the relevant information. For your part, you probably understand some ideas better than others. Although there may be some luck involved in how closely the items on the exam correspond with the ideas you know best, the chances are that if you understand X percent of the material, you will be able to answer about X percent of the exam items. This correspondence implies the first test-taking tactic.
Survey the exam. Before beginning to answer items, you should get an overview of the structure of the exam so you can plan on the allocation of time. Does the exam generally follow the sequence of topics covered in the course? If there are several sources of items, are they organized separately (such as text items distinct from the lecture items)? Are there different types of items, and what weights are allotted to them in computing your score? How long is the exam? If there is a time limit, how fast will you have to work?
The point is that you do not have to answer items in the order in which they appear on the exam. Especially if there is any chance that you might run out of time, you should start on sections of the exam that deal with material you know best. In general, you should first survey the exam so you can pace yourself while taking it.
Read carefully. The most common error made by typical students is giving the right answer to the wrong question. If you mis-read an item, you are going to miss it no matter how good your reasoning. An excellent antidote to this ever-present danger is to force yourself to paraphrase the item in your own words and then re-read the item to see if it still means what you thought the first time you read it. With multiple-choice items, if you think that there are several potentially correct answers, you have a strong reason to re-read the stem carefully. The most frequent reading error on exams is leaving out a critical word...usually a negative word such as not, none, least, fewest, and the like. For reasons that are not well understood, it is much more difficult for people to process negative sentences. Some scientists believe that we always treat a sen tence as being positive, and we put a little mental tag on some to remind us that they really were negative. Then we forget the tag. Hence, reading carefully means in particular to be alert for negative terms.
Mark up the exam sheet. For some reason, most students tend to treat the exam sheet as if it were a valuable document. Actually, it is a throw-away that is exclusively for your use. You not only can but you should mark it up extensively. One reason was given in the preceding tactic; if you make it a point to underline the key word(s) in each item, you are less likely to mis-read them.
Here are a few more ways you can profitably mark up the exam:
Multiple-choice tactics: Students sometimes refer to multiple choice exams as "multiple-guess." To be sure, such exams do give you an opportunity to guess when you do not know the answer, but one can guess on any kind of test. As I pointed out in the preceding chapter on preparing for exams, the reason some students find multiple choice exams difficult is that students are liable for knowing what is wrong as well as what is right. There are a few special tactics to follow when taking multiple choice (and true-false) exams:
1. The person-on-the-street foil. An exam is intended to determine how much you have learned from a course. This implies that a random person-on-the-street who has not taken the course should not know the answer. Why give credit for something that "everybody knows?" This also implies that, if one of the alternative answers is one that any person-on-the-street would choose, it is wrong. Common knowledge is not always wrong in life, but it is wrong on college exams.
Accordingly, when an answer seems so easy that it's "too good to be true," it is almost certainly false. In some disciplines, one of the major goals of an introductory course is to counteract some of the popular misconceptions about the field. In any event, the correct answer should be something you learned from your studies, rather than something you "picked up" somewhere.
By-the-by, a person-on-the-street foil is quite likely to be the first alternative in a multiple-choice item. A good exam writer knows that poor students often simply choose the first good answer to appear, without bothering to read all of the alternatives. Hence, be especially suspicious if the first alternative is "obviously" right. (One of the best antidotes to this tendency is to read the answers in reverse order!)
2. The gambler's fallacy. Most of us have a very bad habit. It is the belief that the Law of Averages applies in the short run so that if something has gone one way several times in a row, it is due to go the other way to even things out. For example, if you flip a coin and it comes up heads three or four times, you start to feel that it's got to come up tails next. Actually, the true odds do not change regardless of how long a run of heads has been flipped (assuming that it is an honest coin), but our hunches are influenced by knowing that the coin will turn up tails half of the times...in the long run. Almost certainly you have had that feeling taking a multiple choice exam. If you notice that you haven't marked a "D" alternative for a while, you begin to think that a "D" is due. On a true-false exam, if you mark a series of items "true," you begin to think that a "false" is due. BEWARE. In the first place, good exam writers do not worry about having every alternative position equally-often correct. And in the second place, you might have missed an earlier item and be guided by the gambler's fallacy to miss a later item.
3. Negations. As I said earlier, everyone has difficulty with negative statements. Perhaps that is because knowing that something is wrong usually doesn't tell you what is right. (For example, "Don't do it too often," doesn't tell you how often you can do it.) The most difficult type of exam item is when you have to recognize that a negative statement is true. Hence, searching for the correct alternative in an item such as, "Which of the following is not...?" requires very special caution. For me, the best approach is to rephrase the item into a positive form, "Which of the following are..?" and then find the negative alternative by eliminating the positive ones.
4. Some tactics depend upon the professor's knowledge about writing multiple-choice items. Very few of them had any actual instruction in constructing good items, and you can sometimes use their weakness to your advantage. Here are a few tips:
A. Longest foil. It frequently takes more words to write a true alternative than a false one. While you are answering the easy-to-you items, note whether the correct alternative tends to be longer than the others. If so, you might profitably favor the longer alternative on more difficul items. B. Asymmetrical foils.ï When there are several parts to answers, the alternatives may not be symmetrical. For example, with 3 choices from A-and-B, A-and-C, D-and-C, note that A and C occur twice while B and D occur only once. Very probably the answer is A-and-C. This is because the professor wanted to make the item equally difficult if you knew only one part. (If you knew "A" it could be B or C; and if you knew "C" it could be A or D.) C. Sequenced foils. Sometimes the alternatives fit a numerical or other logical sequence. Professors have a tendency to list answers on both sides of the correct one; hence, the extremes are usually not correct. For example, "water boils at: (a) 192 degrees, (b) 209 degrees, (c) 212 degrees, (d) 222 degrees." The correct answer is most likely 209 or 212. Note further that there are 3 2's in position one and 3 2's in position 3. The asymmetry thus favors 212! (The exception to this rule is when the correct number is much smaller or much larger than the uninformed person would think likely.)
D. Cop-out foils. Because it is sometimes very difficult/impossible to write enough really plausible alternatives, some professors resort to the "all-of-the-above," "none-of-the-above," or "a-and-c-above" foils. A professor who does this will occasionally make such an answer correct but the percentages are definitely against it. (If a cop-out foil is correct, it is most likely "none-of-the-above" because the other cop-out foils are easier to recognize when they are correct.) E. Ultimate foils. In the real world, it is very rare that truth is ultimate. Hence, words such as only/every/none/always/never seldom appear in a correct alternative. Similarly, correct answers rarely contain words such as exactly/perfectly/ identical. (Again, the usual exception is when the uninformed person would not think it likely. For example, it is hard to believe that a light pebble falls exactly as fast as a heavy metal block.)
5. To change, or not to change, answers? Conventional wisdom says that you should not change answers on true-false or multiple-choice exams. You may have been given such advice and accepted it without asking "Why?" If you have missed some items that you originally had right, you may believe in the no-change rule without exception. The truth is that a never-change rule is better than an always-change rule, but there is a still better rule to follow.
First, let me explain why the never-change rule has merit. We all have a strong, innate alternation tendency. Try this exercise: Close your eyes for about 30 seconds and say numbers between 1 and 9 in a random order. Please do it before reading further. Now think back and try to remember how you were coming up with numbers. The chances are that you never, or almost never, repeated the same number twice in order. Actually, you should repeat numbers one-tenth of the time, but our natural inclination is to alternate among any choices that are nearly equal in value. If for whatever reason you have said one number, you are likely to say some other number next.
This alternation tendency is widespread. We tend to vary what we choose from a menu of things we like to eat, we rarely play the same record over and over, we get bored by TV programs that seem to repeat the same basic plot, and as the saying has it, the grass always seems to be greener in the other yard. Similarly, if two alternatives on a multiple-choice exam look about equally attractive to you, after you choose one of them the first time through, the other will look better the next time through. Changing answers can result from this natural tendency to alternate choices.
Now even when you are not really certain about an answer, your first choice is likely to be based on some knowledge about the topic. Insofar as that is true, then changing answers because of alternation tendencies is a poor tactic. Now that you know why the never-change rule is popular, you can follow the best rule: Change answers ONLY when you find something you overlooked the first time. If you review the exam with the benefit of having taken the rest of it, you may see some different perspective on an item. The rule says to change your answer if you have a better reason than simple alternation.
My evidence is that students who understand this rule are about twice as likely to change answers from wrong to right as vice versa. It is easy to see where a student has erased an answer, and I find that almost all of the better students do change a few answers, and do so correctly most of the time. But beware of the grass-is-greener tendency to change just for the sake of alternating.
6. To guess or not to guess? I recommend that you guess when you are not sure of the answer. Even if there is a correction for guessing, you should at least break even if you guess intelligently. And when you can eliminate one or two alternatives, guessing should improve your total score. But the secret is to really-guess, not pretend-guess. Really-guessing is to make the choice without regard to the content of the viable alternatives. You must guess by rule, not by intuition. Intuition usually leads to the person-on-the-street wrong answer, and that form of guessing" leads to learning your guesses. I have already given you several potential guessing rules, such as the longest alternative, the asymmetrical alternative, or the intermediate alternative. When these do not apply, you need some other consistent guessing rule if you want to guess intelligently. As one example, I usually guess "false" on true-false exams. My reasoning is that there are many ways for an item to be false but only one way for it to be true. (For example: Columbus discovered America in 1492; he did not discover America in hundreds of other possible dates.) However, some professors prefer to accentuate the positive, and it is easier to write true statements than plausible false ones. Hence, before guessing, it is a good idea to scan back over the items you have answered. If there are noticeably more true items, then the best tactic is to guess "true." In any event, it is best to leave the answer blank while taking the exam, and guess without even looking back at the item. Another good guessing rule is to toss a coin. If you can reduce the viable alternatives of a multiple choice item to two, don't guess your "hunch," but leave the choice up to chance. Any rule that you decide upon in advance is fine. For example, the first viable answer on odd numbered items, and the second on even numbered items. There are a few supplementary rules that I have found helpful.
I rarely "guess" either the first or the last alternative in a multiple choice item. As I noted earlier, when there is a person-on-the-street foil, it is likely to be given first. Furthermore, it is sometimes impossible to construct enough really good alternatives, and the last one is frequently simply a sensible-sounding filler. Accordingly, I usually choose a middle alternative, and toss a coin when both viable alternatives are middle ones.
Essay items. The most important thing to bear in mind when you are writing an answer to an essay item is that grading is subjective. Professors can devise reasonably objective ways to score answers to essay items (for example, by simply counting how many relevant points are included), but basically, grading essays is a personal judgment. For this reason, anything you can do to create a positive reaction will tilt the grade in your favor.
The first thing to do with an essay item is to locate the action word. Next, identify the objects of that action, and then reflect on what the professor might want. With some action words, there is no doubt about the intention while others are less directive. In every case, remember that the professor wants you to show what you learned in this course, not common knowledge. "Define" asks you to give a general statement of what a term means. You can give a memorized definition, or you can usually paraphrase it into the vernacular. Note that "define" is not the same as...
"Illustrate" (or "Give an example of), which asks for a specific context to which the term applies. Thus, the "gambler's fallacy" is defined as the belief that the odds that a chance event will occur increase the longer the time since it last occurred. An illustration of this is the tendency to favor "true" after having answered a series of items "false." If the item calls for an original example, you will get, at best, partial credit for one given in the text or lecture. "Compare" and "contrast" are general action words. To compare tends to focus on the similarities of the objects whereas to contrast focuses more on their differences. You can feel confident if, in comparing objects that seem very different, you can identify some interesting similarity, or if, in contrasting objects that seem to be similar, you can identify some interesting difference. Always indicate both sides, but focus on what the item asks.
"Describe" and "discuss" are the most general action words; they ask for a narrative about the object. To describe tends to focus more on objective features whereas to discuss focuses more on your subjective evaluation. In describing an object, you should give more than its definition; tell why it is interesting. In discussing an object, give some rationale for your opinion. "How," "Why," "What," "When," "Who," etc. are common action words for short essays. Their meanings are familiar in the vernacular, and it is important to answer the question asked. Once you are certain that you understand what the professor wants, you are ready to take the following steps:
1. Plan the essay. Under the pressure of taking an exam, one's natural tendency is to start writing the first thoughts that come to mind as soon as you finish reading the question. Rarely is your first impulsive answer your best answer, and even when it is, you can often state it better if you have thought it through before starting to put it in writing. It is harder to change your mind after words are down on paper and it takes a lot more precious time to write than it takes to think. Accordingly, a very important tactic in answering essay items is to plan your answer before you start writing. Organize your thoughts and if it is a long essay, make an outline. Then, after thinking through your potential answer, re-read the question to be sure that you have really answered it. Only then are you ready to write.
2. Be direct. Short, definite statements make the best answers in a test situation. Remember that the professor (or the grader) has a number of exams to grade, which means s/he will resent having to try to figure out the meaning of long, rambling sentences.
3. Be concise. Brevity is the hallmark of a good essay answer. In particular, cut out the bull! It is not the case that graders are impressed by long answers; on the contrary, they may grade you down if they feel you could have said everything you had to say in many fewer words. Again, don't make the reader think you are wasting her or his valuable time with meaningless or redundant verbiage.
The length of an essay should correspond to the number of points it is worth. It is always important to be as concise as possible, but if an essay counts a lot, the professor thinks you should have a lot to say. Conversely, don't overkill a low-point item.
4. Be pertinent. Some students use a shotgun approach to essay items. They try to write down everything they know about a topic in hopes that something they say will answer the question. You may lose some credit for including information that is true but not pertinent.
5. Be literate. Professors realize that you are under time pressure when taking an exam. Hence, they do not expect "perfect prose" in your essays. At the same time, they can't help noticing sloppy sentences, poor paragraphs, and incomplete ideas. A literate essay will not earn you a good grade for a wrong answer, but an illiterate essay may lower your grade for a right answer. This is true in all courses, not just those in English composition. A few points about literate writing are contained in Appendix J. You should review those points not just for the purpose of writing essay exams but as an important aspect of general verbal fluency.
6. Good appearance. I have said that grading an essay involves a subjective judgment. Even if the grader tries to be objective when reading your essay, s/he will be influenced by the appearance of your essay. Always use a dark pencil or pen, and write legibly. Be neat. Try to avoid erasures or cross-outs, and especially changes that you try to crowd in between lines. If you need to insert something, put an asterisk in your essay and put the inserted material at the bottom of your essay.
7. Re-read your answer carefully. Sometimes, students ask me to re-grade an answer. It usually turns out that they have mis-read the answer even knowing that it received a low grade. When I point out what they actually said, the response is, "What I really meant was.." To which my response is that all I know is what you wrote, not what you intended to write. It is always difficult to proof-read one's own writing, but it is an important skill to develop.