This is a world of tests and competition.
Hundreds of quite able and competent people are waiting out there with lips pressed in firm determination. You are just one of them with your own plan and power.
Let’s see if we can help you with some ideas that might boost your potentiality and probability to win.
Types Of Standardized Tests: General Perspective
Throughout your life, you are likely to face some of the standardized tests in your student life and professional life. Let’s first have a brief look at the type of tests:
Standardized Tests For Students:
There are the following types of tests:
- Achievement Tests are taken to determine what and how much the students have learned over a period of time.
These tests also passively measure the standard of a school or how skilled the teachers are.
- Aptitude Tests are designed to see the performance of students in a specific field of knowledge or skill.
Such tests are helpful, especially for determining students’ special knacks or interests or which course of higher studies they may or may not take in future.
- College Admission Tests don’t need any introduction.
They are typical of the colleges where a large number of students apply every year and only a predetermined number of students are finally allowed to study.
- International Comparison Tests attempt to compare the standards of education across the world and compare the achievement trends in individual countries.
- Psychological Tests are administered to find a person’s mental and intellectual power of processing information and understanding through audio visual activities.
They include IQ tests of various types. These tests are generally designed by professional psychologists around the globe.
Standardized TEst For Professionals:
These tests include the following types, in general:
- Language Proficiency Tests are taken by students and professionals who aim to study or work in an institution or organization where using a certain language is required.
- Professional Certificate Tests are most probably the most popular ones around the world.
Every year, thousands of organizations offer jobs for persons who fit their requirements. To select the right candidate they impose some conditions to fulfill, which include showing scores in some professional certificates like TOEFL, SAT, GMAT, and GRE.
A pretty detailed list of American standardized tests can be found here.
Preparing For The Test
Needless to say, the preparation you need depends on which test you’re going to take. But while we are suggesting, we will keep all of the tests in our consideration.
Let’s take you through our complete guideline.
Start From The Beginning
1. Prerequisites To Begin With
Every standardized test has some declarations clearly describing and guiding you through the scope and requirements for the test.
Go through the prerequisites, and start preparing yourself under the light of that.
2. The Subject Synopsis
The test has some critical definitions, concepts, and formulas.
You need to understand them and, if required, memorize them neatly. Some questions directly ask you to write a definition or verify a formula.
The Preparation
3. Practice Tests
Tests before a test — that’s the best way to prepare yourself for any test.
You get the practical idea of how you’ve learned and what the final test could be like.
4. Online Resources
Frankly speaking, you just cannot finish using all of the resources available on the net.
Hundreds of sites are sonorous with tips and tricks (well, like this one), from which, at least, every one of five is really useful.
5. Planning on Preparation
If you blindly start reading and taking practice tests, you’re not likely to be satisfied with your preparation.
You’d better calculate the time you should spend preparing, divide the whole time into weeks and days, and proceed with a steady progress.
6. Tools And Techs
Only your pens and pencils are not always all that you need. Sometimes, if you are allowed to, you can use some technological tools which will shorten your calculation time.
For example, what is a TI 84 calculator?
It is a graphic calculator which might be of great help depending on the test you’re taking.
7. Memory Tricks
So many people have a hard time memorizing definitions, data, and formula.
Modern psychologists have found some excellent tips and tricks to easily memorize these things. If you visit this site, you’re sure to reap the benefits.
8. The Equipment
Arrange and keep the essential papers ready for the exam day so that you don’t have to hurry before you leave for the exam hall.
Your admission card and other identification photos and papers should be on your table right before the day of the exam. Ransacking for a necessary paper just before an exam is surely going to make you anxious and may partially ruin your months of painstaking preparation.
9. The Night Before the Test
Not just the night before the test but from some days before the test, you need to be cautious enough not to eat anything wrong that might cause any stomach issue, not to get into any family trouble, or not to mention, a romantic tragedy.
Especially on the night before the exam, make sure to sleep. Sleeping deficiency acts violently upon the next day’s performance. To avoid this you should buy CBD oil, which is scientifically proven to help you get to sleep and stay asleep for a full nights rest.
And also one night worth of studying is never going to improve your concept or performance.
On The Day
10. Comfortable Outfit
Your passion for a smart and good looking dress should not be mingled with an uncomfortable dress that is going to keep you distracted in the time of the examination.
11. Timely Arrival
A perfect way to avoid anxiety and mental tension is arriving in good time.
You keep your confidence stored, full preparation unbroken, and your starting satisfactory.
You’re off to a great exam.
12. Relax
For so many people, anxiety, nervousness, and uneasiness is a regular trouble.
Try doing some meditation (sometimes called self-hypnosis). It pacifies you by the auto suggestion to your subconscious mind that everything is under your control.
If you are a believer, you can utter some short religious words as well. This makes you believe that someone great and merciful is with you. This can make you more relaxed and confident.
In The Test
13. The Question Paper at a Glance
Take some time going through the questions and try to understand if it’s just as you predicted or if there are some differences.
Decide which one to start with, which ones are harder, or which ones are likely to be troublesome.
14. Watch Out for the Time
Set goals for time and keep on answering continuously with an awareness of time.
Once you get involved with any problem oblivious of the time, you’re very likely to run short of time at the end.
15. Start With The Easiest
Sort the questions roughly from easiest to hardest.
Now start answering from the easiest ones and confidently proceed to the hardest ones.
Keeping up your confidence through the end of the exam is very essential, and answering from easiest to hardest is the best way to do it.
16. Questions may Have Twists And Tricks
Don’t jump to answering just after the first glance of the questions.
It’s a tricky world, and nobody is going to tell you the tricky ones from the plain ones.
Read the question twice if necessary, and be sure that there is no hidden twist in it. Unfamiliar or technical words can make a simple thing difficult.
17. Don’t Waste Time Struggling with Difficulties
Difficult questions are always made for you to stumble on. Many examinees cannot regain the track of time and patience once they’ve fallen in the pit of difficult questions.
Your first action should be ‘leaving out’ the question. Then, if you have time after every other question has been satisfactorily answered, you can come back to the difficult one and give it a try.
18. Touch Every Question If Not Negatively Credited
This point needs no explanation.
Try every question if you have time. After all, why would you leave the probability of getting a credit or two?
19. Filling Out Answers Grid
When you need to fill up bubbles (or small circles) you must be particularly careful to fill them accurately.
Also, write answers perfectly next to the number printed on the question paper. A confused examiner might not credit you for any inaccurate alignment of question number and your answer.
At The End
20. Review and Retry
Now that you’ve finished writing all answers, keep checking them with as much scrutiny as you can. A single mark can put you behind a hundred other examinees.
21. Don’t Get Distracted when Others have Finished
There is always a hurry and restlessness during the last minutes of exams.
This is when many examinees lose persistence and suddenly an urge to finish quickly seizes them. Remember, one minute’s review might get you some precious credits without which you might lament after you get the result.
Summarizing The Big Picture
Preparing for a standardized test is really getting harder everyday as the average standard of education and corporate skills are soaring higher and higher.
But you don’t have to worry much. Other people from this earth are just as you are, aren’t they?
