What You’ll Learn To Do: Examine and Apply Effective Test Taking Strategies

Tests are a necessary part of the college experience. Learning studying and test taking strategies will be a vital part of improving your grade and academic success.

During your academic career, you will encounter a variety of tests; thus, your test taking strategy should vary. For example, if you take a multiple-choice exam your strategy will be different than if you were to take an essay test.

Students often get in the bad habit of reading the assigned text once and then revisiting the notes the night before the test. Students may burn the midnight oil by reviewing all the information they learned thus far for a mid-term, or the cumulative information of an entire semester for a final (aka: cramming). By creating ongoing, reflective, well-planned study habits now; you will find preparing for a test has become much easier.

Do you experience test anxiety? This is a common occurrence for most college students, but there are strategies to conquer it, such as being prepared, avoid cramming, creating practice tests, getting proper rest the night before an exam, etc.

After you have completed this topic’s activities, you should be able to:

• Identify strategies for test taking and overcoming test anxiety.
• Apply strategies in a test-taking situation.
• Determine your optimal time, place, and setting for studying.

Learning Activities

In order to successfully complete this module’s work, you will need to do the following.

Tasks

• Watch: How to Reduce Test Anxiety
• Read: Preparing for and Taking Tests
  • Test Anxiety and How to Control It
  • Studying to Learn (Not Just for Tests)
  • Taking Tests
  • The Secrets of Q and A’s
  • The Honest Truth
  • Using Test Results
  • Chapter Activities

• Discuss: Test Anxiety Case Study (10 points)
• Quiz: Studying and Taking Tests (10 points)

For grading, refer to the “Grading, Withdrawal, and Incomplete” section in the Syllabus.