Video Transcript Advanced Test Taking Strategies for Undergraduate Students In this particular session, I am going to focus more on test wiseness clues and last resort strategies for students in undergraduate programs. But I want to remind you that in our first session we talked about, and we are talking about test taking strategies multiple choice exams here, we talked about strategies for managing the exam and we looked at various question types and a couple of special situations. In this particular session, I want to talk a little bit about test wiseness clues and some last resort strategies. And then we are going to look at some practice questions and show you how some of those strategies and some other concepts apply in actual test taking. Let me mention my disclaimer at this point. Sometimes I am accused of talking about test wiseness strategies and clues and guessing strategies as the end all in test taking. Like you don’t need to know anything. I want to assure you that there is no test strategy in the world that is going to make a difference if you don’t know your material. The best test strategy in the world is to know your stuff. If you don’t study it’s going to show up and you can have the best strategies in the world and they’re not going to do a whole lot for you. There are some people who take tests very well and there are others who struggle with them. I think being test wise and having some strategies can allow you to be a little more relaxed. And they also can help you by confirming that you are on the right track and confirming that you know your material. And that’s the perspective that I want you to take from this. Let’s look at test wiseness clues. We are going to look at four of them here. One of them particularly in the undergraduate context and then some last resort strategies. What I call mutually exclusive or contradictory pairs. And these are all one best answer questions that we’re dealing with. Opposites or contradictory pairs: The concept here is, if you during your scan of the answers notice that two answers contradict with each other, it’s usually a red flag. It says think about me and think about me. And a high percentage of the time, one of those contradictory pairs tends to be the answer. It doesn’t guarantee it. So, don’t hunt me down if you went with one of the opposites and shoot me one day. Understand that it is a technique. In this case we have “Magnetic Hill near Moenton appears to run”. You will notice that “a” says “upward but actually downward” and “downward but actually upward” (pointing to “d”). In this case I would be thinking about those two opposite answers. In this case this one (pointing to “d”) happens to be the answer. If anybody is aware of Magnetic Hill, you can actually drive down a hill, turn your car around, put it in neutral, and the car will scoot to the top of the hill. It happens to be an optical illusion. But, be aware that contradictory pairs are a red flag. And this is something to think about. The next test wiseness clue has to do with the negative question we discussed in our first session. The negative question is a question that might have one of these words: all but one, a popular one is except, no, not, never, and the word least. If you have one of these words usually in your question, then you know you are dealing with a negative question. This is probably kin to a last resort strategy. But you also need to be aware that it can confirm that you are on the right track. If you have a negative question and you are struggling with it, what I suggest is you leave it to the end and come back. Remember the negative question you are looking for the false answer, or another way to think about it is, the odd answer. The one that doesn’t fit. Sometimes what you will observe with a negative question is, and in this case there are five answers, that four of them will have something in common. If you can tease out that common thread, or that common theme, or that common thesis, in four of the answers, usually the odd one will stick out like a sore thumb and it can confirm that you are on the right track. Let’s look at this question: “Youngsters who are raised in very restrictive conditions, show all but one of the following” or show all except. Think about this with me in a social context. This is a simplistic example. It’s the principle I want you to understand. If youngsters are raised in restrictive conditions, you think they would “a” demonstrate a weakness in social awareness. Probably. Is this a positive or negative behavior? Probably negative. “b” Impulsive behavior tends to be negative. “c” deficiency in problem solving ability tends to be negative. “d” Increased resistance to stress and disease, positive. Be careful with these words that tend to be negative. Some people would read that and key in on “resistance” and say its negative, yet you have to take the whole answer in context. Do I quit there? No. Read every distracter. It’s important to read all your distracters in any question you are dealing with. Because one little word can make it subtly different. “e” Youngsters who have disturbances in their sensory systems. Positive or negative? It is negative. And there is my odd answer (circling “d”). Sometimes that strategy can help you key in on an answer and lead you in the right direction. That was contradictory pairs and common likeness. Let’s move on to middle or moderate value. The idea here is if you find a word in an answer that is all-inclusive. And by that we mean any word that is 100% in concept. Where there is absolutely no exception. If I say, “I always go on Saturday night”, does it mean I go sometimes? No. It means I go all the time, 100%. All, always, no, not, never, entirely, completely, wholly. And in some contexts the word sterile. 100% of the time. (circle “not” in question “a”) And the notion is, if you do not know whether that answer is true or false, you want to assume that it is false (cross out “a”). Statistically they tend to be false more often than they are true. In “b” we have the word “always of” (cross out). “c” several inches taller than the average male. There’s nothing all-inclusive there. “d” Found to have an abnormal… you will notice “ab” and what does that mean? Not normal. Watch your prefixes also. “e” invariably associated with…Invariably means no variation or always. So I would again if I was in a situation where I wasn’t really sure, I would probably take that position (circling “c”). Now, I will caution you that you are not going to find it all that neat and clean. You may find one or two answers that have an all-inclusive word. But again, the rule is, if you don’t know whether it’s true or false you are probably safer assuming that it is false. D. Association: I would caution you here that this is probably one of the weaker test wiseness clues; you don’t find it very often. But, occasionally it will pop up. This was a geography or history question; “The main purpose of ‘el Plan Cardolian’ first instituted in 1963 and later discarded as a failure in 1969, was to”: and in this case it is an obvious association and this is a prettyobvious question. They are sometimes a little more sophisticated, but now and then you will find this kind of association. The only language that matches here, certainly not Canada, Australia, or South Africa, but probably Brazil because it’s Portuguese. So that would be the answer that I would go with (circling “c”). Again, it’s a weak test wiseness clue, but occasionally you will notice it. Now I want to move on and talk about strategies of last resort. And here we are talking about those two or three questions on every test where you absolutely don’t know. The notion is that you want to have strategy for guessing rather than random guessing. If you have a system or a strategy you tend, and I will say this again, you will tend to hit more often. I think one of the worst things you can do on a test is random guess. You may not be able to see this example, but the notion is that if there is an answer that is longer with more detail and you absolutely know nothing about the question, go with the longer answer. Sometimes as I said before it is very difficult to make good test questions. So sometimes they will throw in an extra word or two to make the answers the same. So, it’s a reasonable bet within the system. Not guaranteed to be correct but a strategy. Middle or Moderate Value: If you again are guessing, and you absolutely don’t know and you have a series of numbers, the idea is to avoid the extremes and go with the value more in the middle. And in this case the answer would be, not “c” but 6 would be the middle value between the 1 and 14. So the answer would be “c”. Letter of the Day: A very popular strategy. I encourage students, the last thing they do before they start a test, and a lot of students will tell me that the last thing they do is pray and I suspect that there is more prayer on test day in a college setting than any other day. But, the last thing you want to do is decide on letter of the day. And the idea here is that if you have two, three, four, five questions you absolutely don’t know and one of these other strategies won’t work, you want to answer all of these questions using the same letter. Most students will go with “b” or “c”. Now days, answers are pretty randomized, so I’m not sure it makes a big difference. But again, tend to stay away from the outliers and you maybe want to go with “b” or “c”. You want to be consistent because statistically you will hit more often. I will sometimes suggest if they have four questions they absolutely don’t know and each of those questions had four answers and you randomly guess, your odds tend to be 1 to 16. If I were to answer all of those questions “c”, my odds would probably increase 1 to 4. You have a little better odds there. So, letter of the day, a popular strategy. Association (stem option): I will mention that this guessing strategy applies more to undergraduate programs, but at the graduate level, and the professional school level I would avoid it like the plague. It tends to be a distracter, to pull you away. Undergraduate, you will determine yourself whether you want to use it or not. It’s totally up to you. But, occasionally, you will find a word in the question that is matched in one of the answers and you could use that as a guessing strategy. But again, I am always cautious with that particular strategy. I want to move on very quickly and take you through some questions. I have pulled these from different disciplines. Some come from medicine, some come from history, come from science courses and perhaps geography. Show you how these strategies apply. These are all one best answer questions: In question number 1, the first thing I notice is that it is a negative (underlining “except”) question. My strategy here is that if I knew anything about this question or this answer and could answer it, I would probably rid myself of the negative word, read it as positive and find the false answer. I’m going to assume that I don’t know the answer. It’s something I’ve never seen before. I’m going to read my question: “Tumors that are somewhat responsive to therapy should be investigated in patients with carcinoma or cancer of unknown primary origin include all of the following EXCEPT”. I often want to read a question then stop and put it in my own words to help me understand. Here the patient has a tumor or tumors that are somewhat responsive to therapy or treatment. They should be investigated in patients where that cancer has an unknown primary origin. I would investigate in all of these except one of them. I absolutely don’t know, so I am going to use my association or my patterning, pattern strategy. I’m going to look for a common likeness. We talked about that in the first session, common likeness. The first thing that caught my eye, and remember in a negative question you are looking for the false answer, or the odd answer, the one that doesn’t fit. The first thing that caught my eye was “carcinoma” running through all of the answers. That didn’t help me cause I am looking for a false or odd answer. So, let me look at the principle players. I’ve got prostate gland, the lung, the breast, and germ cell carcinoma, and thyroid carcinoma. I’ve never heard of this (question mark next to “cell carcinoma”). There is a possibility. But don’t quit there and I will come back and talk about this. So, what do I know? I’ve got a prostate gland here. The lung is an organ. The breast, we are talking about the mammary gland. Thyroid I know is a gland. So there’s a pattern so let me take a chance at those (crossing off the glands). Those are out. So I am down to the lung and germ cell, which I have never heard before. Which one do I go with? Many people will gravitate to the answer they have never heard before. Let me suggest something. If there is an answer that you have never seen before you want to avoid it like the plague. In most instances it is there to pull you away. Knowing that I avoided that and I also know that the lung is an organ and not necessarily a gland. So, I went with “b”. Germ cell carcinoma I now know is cancer of the ovaries or testis, which happen to be glands. But, the rule is that if there is an unknown, you may want to avoid it. So this is a case where pattern of common likeness was helpful. Number 2. The purpose of what, preoperative skin preparation is to: why do I prepare the skin for an operation? (a) To reduce the number of microorganisms. (b) to remove all resident bacteria. (c) to render the skin sterile. (d) or accomplish all of the above. This is a popular answer (d) accomplish all of the above, cause it makes sense. However, look at this (circling all in answer b), one of those cautionary words, all-inclusive. If I reduce the number of microorganisms am I removing all resident bacteria? No, contradiction. The other notion is, that sterile is an all-inclusive word. If I remove all resident bacteria am I not rendering the skin sterile? Another concept in test taking is if two answers say the same thing they tend to be wrong. And sense these two are contradictory (circling a and b), I would pick a; reduce the number of microorganisms. So always be cautious when you find all-inclusive words in your answers. I have not talked about this concept but it’s very simple. Here’s a question that probably came out of geography or history. The country of Frankton was particularly influential in early 19th century economic policy. This influence has been of great interest to historians since the population of Frankton was less than. I have never heard of Frankton. I don’t even know if it existed. I don’t know what the population was. I know it was less than the highest number (circling a, 20,000). So it’s at least a strategy. If it says less than go with the highest cause it has to be less than the highest. Number 4. In a recent article published in the British Journal of Psychiatric Modalities the authors compared thirteen widely used psychological interventions and found that. Look at a. Americans did NOT use. (b) Freud’s psychoanalytic approach took too long and produced NO cures. (c) Carl Rogers client centered counseling was uniquely successful. Possible. (d) Glaser’s Reality therapy could NOT be used on clients with IQ’s under 90. If I were faced with the situation of not knowing I would probably go with c and take the chance that these were wrong (marking off a, b, and d). And in this case I would happen to be right. In number 5, you should be able to download a copy of these so you have them in front of you as you go through this tape. Number 5, we are talking about the David Act adopted by congress in the early 20th century and it became a significant piece of legislation because of an amendment attached to the bill. I don’t know. I have never heard of the David Act. Maybe I should have, but in this case I would have to guess. I would go with the longest answer (circling c). With more detail. Luckily I was right. Number 6. Cells that look like parent cells are called: (a) undifferentiated (b) anaplastic (c) well-differentiated (d) pseudodia. First, the thing that catches my eye is that I have a contradictory pair. Two opposites; undifferentiated and well differentiated. At least I’ve got a 50/50. In this case the other thing that catches my eye is this “un”, which means “not”. And so if I’m not really sure, I tend to avoid that and go with the well –differentiated. Which in this case would allow me to get credit for that question. Number 7 is another except question. And in this case you have a man that is going in for a gastrechtomy. He’s 70 pounds overweight. This is actually the surgical removal of the stomach or partial removal of the stomach. He is 70 pounds overweight and he smokes 2 and ½ packs of cigarettes per day. Areas of preop teaching for Mr. C would include all the following except one. What would I teach him, what would I not teach him? If I wasn’t sure I would be looking at whether there was a pattern or a relationship, common relationship, in these answers. In the interest of time I will note that “a” is very objective. I can show him the use of the incentive spirometer. It’s an instrument they have patients blow in after surgery to keep their respiratory system healthy and exercised. (b) Can I show him how much pain he should expect? No. (c) Can I show him how to log roll to get out of bed? Yes. (d) Can I show him leg exercises? Yes. I am looking for the odd one or the exception. Which would be “b”. Many students would gravitate towards “b” and say “yes” I would teach him about pain. But the notion is, can I talk about how much and you can’t quantify that. Number 8. The government policymaking process depends on the relationship and the interaction of the. You will notice “only” and “only” (crossing out b and c). Probably not. And in that case, if I was guessing I would go with the longest answer. Which would happen to be right. Number 9 is a more than. And in a more than situation I am going to go with the lowest answer (d). Number 10. We haven’t talked about this but remember talking in the first session about always going with the mid range. But in cases where you have ranges in your answers and in this case we are talking about Calamar rock formation of the earth were found between the depths of: (a) four to five (b) two to seven (c) three to six and (d) one to eight. You always when guessing want to go with the widest range. And in this case it would be d, one to eight. Number 11. And I put this in here because it is another important concept in test taking. We are talking about the PH of acidulated fluoride gels. What kind of fluoride gel and where does the fluoride gel go in your mouth. And it is talking about acidulated and the base there is acid. When you deal with test questions always use your common sense. Always work from what you know to a conclusion. Now we know that 7 is neutral and anything above is alkaline and anything below is acid. We are talking about an acid fluoride gel. 7, 7, 9 to 11. Those are automatically out (crossing out c, d, and e). We are down to a and b. So which one do I go with? You have to think common sense here. Would you put an acid of 1 in your mouth? No. You would probably loose your lips pretty quickly. So you wanna go with the 3 to 5. I would suggest that you take a few minutes and look at these strategies just to become familiar with them. I want to say this; one of the worst things you can do is go into a test looking for these strategies. You do not want to do that. You go looking for strategies your focus is strategy rather than what the question is asking you. You want to read the question, understand it, and always operate from your knowledge. It is good to have practiced these before you go into a test. If you happen to notice one of the strategies as you are working through the test, fine. But, don’t go looking for them. It will end up hurting you rather than helping you. You miss the focus of the question. If you can sensitize yourself to these by practicing old questions, I think in the long run it will help you. And that ends this particular session. Thank you.