Sunday, June 19, 2005
T - 60 Hours
As I proctored some of the finals last week, I witnessed many freshmen who would finish their exam early and then stare at the ceiling or fidget in their seats for an hour rather than check their work or improve upon their initial responses. Suffice is to say, they did not do as well as they could have. No, it made much more sense to them to sit and do nothing rather than to make good use of their time. Those particular freshmen were poor test-takers.
Here are some tips on how you can thoroughly check your Regents exam if you finish before our classes' 2.5 hour minimum test time ( though I encourage you to go the distance and put in an Honors 3-hour effort; yes, you will hear a stampede of failing students rushing out after two hours so that they can register early for summer school).
1. After you SLOWLY and carefully re-read a given question, carefully read your response and make sure that it contains the KEYWORDS from the question and, most importantly, that your response ANSWERS the question. You can always add clarifying details to your answer. Do not let space be a concern. You may write outside the boxes as long as you draw an arrow showing the continuation of your answer.
2. Make sure that your answer is EASILY readable/legible. Carefully cross out anything that you are editing out and clearly write in what you are correcting.
3. DRAW PICTURES/DRAW DIAGRAMS/ DRAW PICTURES/DRAW DIAGRAMS!!! to enhance your explanations (if you did not initially do so). This may be the single best tip that I can give you. A picture can organize your thoughts and it also paints a thousand words.
4. Plug your numbers back into the question to make sure that they produce the correct total. Check all values that you (mis)READ off of the Reference Tables.
5. Add SPECIFIC EXAMPLES of anything that you are writing about in general.
6. Directly above your solved quantitative answer, write the GENERAL EQUATION for the specific calculation that you did and make sure that you placed the numbers AND UNITS in the correct location in the equation and that you didn't leave out any part of the equation.
If you follow these tips thoroughly, you WILL improve your test score ; also, performing these steps will keep you engaged and productive for the entire allotted Regents time.
A lot is riding on your performance. I will see and check everyone's complete test including scrapwork. You should display/demonstrate every sound test-taking technique that you now know.
My classes last year certainly followed this advice and we lived happily ever after with four perfect scores and a 93 class average too.
Here are some tips on how you can thoroughly check your Regents exam if you finish before our classes' 2.5 hour minimum test time ( though I encourage you to go the distance and put in an Honors 3-hour effort; yes, you will hear a stampede of failing students rushing out after two hours so that they can register early for summer school).
1. After you SLOWLY and carefully re-read a given question, carefully read your response and make sure that it contains the KEYWORDS from the question and, most importantly, that your response ANSWERS the question. You can always add clarifying details to your answer. Do not let space be a concern. You may write outside the boxes as long as you draw an arrow showing the continuation of your answer.
2. Make sure that your answer is EASILY readable/legible. Carefully cross out anything that you are editing out and clearly write in what you are correcting.
3. DRAW PICTURES/DRAW DIAGRAMS/ DRAW PICTURES/DRAW DIAGRAMS!!! to enhance your explanations (if you did not initially do so). This may be the single best tip that I can give you. A picture can organize your thoughts and it also paints a thousand words.
4. Plug your numbers back into the question to make sure that they produce the correct total. Check all values that you (mis)READ off of the Reference Tables.
5. Add SPECIFIC EXAMPLES of anything that you are writing about in general.
6. Directly above your solved quantitative answer, write the GENERAL EQUATION for the specific calculation that you did and make sure that you placed the numbers AND UNITS in the correct location in the equation and that you didn't leave out any part of the equation.
If you follow these tips thoroughly, you WILL improve your test score ; also, performing these steps will keep you engaged and productive for the entire allotted Regents time.
A lot is riding on your performance. I will see and check everyone's complete test including scrapwork. You should display/demonstrate every sound test-taking technique that you now know.
My classes last year certainly followed this advice and we lived happily ever after with four perfect scores and a 93 class average too.
# posted by C @ 10:56 PM 
