Are you struggling during your tests?

Do you want a bulletproof plan for tacking the test with ease and eliminating unwanted mistakes that are costing you precious points?

If that’s you, then this post is for you.

I am going to give you the exact blueprint that I created and used to obtain at least a 3.85 GPA during my last 2 years of college and allowed me the ability to predict the content on my tests with 90-95% accuracy.

Plus, I will tell you how to deal with the most difficult questions on the test in a way that will reduce your stress by at least 90% your current stress level.

I don’t want to waste your time, so let’s get right into it.

Assuming you are well rested and you ate a great breakfast, lunch or dinner the day of the test, here is the blueprint you can use to crush your exams day in and day out.

Go Through the Test 1 Time

Think of this as your first draft when you write an essay. When you write the essay, chances are, there will be a lot of mistakes that you didn’t intend to make that you need to fix.

This is the same with tests.

For example, let’s say you are in an algebra test and you know how to do the problem, but you a sign error by accident that you know shouldn’t be there.

This is what will happen when you go through the test the first time.

It will not look exactly the way you intended, but you MUST get something out there to save yourself from not answering every question on time.

Obviously, read the questions carefully, but just get through it the first time with everything you know. Don’t worry about little careless errors at this point; we’ll address those in the next part of the test taking process.

When you finish the test 1 time, you will have either of these scenarios:

1. You have a lot of time left to answer the questions again
2. You don’t have enough time to do the questions again, but you have enough time to skim through them.
3. You gotta turn in your test

We’re going to focus on scenarios 1 and 2 in this post.

I promise, if you follow these procedures down to the tee, you can expect to see your test scores go up by at least 15-20 points (ok maybe 10 since I don’t know what test you are taking) than the scores you would receive had you not checked your work correctly.

So with that said, let’s start editing your test like a pro (no seriously, we will edit your test)!

Scenario 1

You’ve done your test and you say “How do I know I didn’t screw up?”

This is how you do that.

First, you will do the problems/questions again from scratch.

Just like you would if you were answering the question for the first time.

Go through it a lot more carefully and pay close attention to the wordings of the questions and any pluses or minuses if you are taking a math or science test.

Budget your time equally per question with respect to how much time you have left so you don’t spend too much time on the questions.

Now when you finish doing the questions again, here’s what you’ll do:

You will first realize in your head what you know is right in the question.

You will then look at both of your attempts side by side and identify any errors that you know shouldn’t be there.

For instance, you might see an x²+2x-4=0 when you know it should be x²-2x-4=0.

That’s a sign error.

What you’ll do in a situation like this is you will go to the mistakes and quickly resolve them in your first answer.

If you are in a time crunch, cross out the parts that are wrong and replace them with what’s correct. I can’t guarantee that your professors will understand, but they might take it into consideration when they are grading your test.

You’ll solve the problem or bubble in the correct answer after you compare your two answers.

This is by far the most effective way to check your work. In fact, even Penn State University agrees with me in their tips on taking tests effectively. You can read those tips here if you wish.

Now let’s say you really don’t have time and you really can’t do the problems again.

There’s a strategy for that and it’s this:

Scenario 2

Here’s what you do:

1. Look at how much time you have
2. Divide it by the number of questions you have on the test
3. Unless you catch and are correcting a mistake, the time from B is the amount of time you have to check each question

For instance, let’s say you have 20 minutes left and there are 5 questions on the test.

You will divide 20 minutes by 5 questions to get 4 minutes per question.

Now, when you check your work, please read the questions carefully for the following items:

1. Key words you might’ve missed (ex. Directly vs. indirectly)
2. Values you didn’t read correctly (ex. You read 5 instead of -5)
3. Any units for STEM majors (ex. Meters (m) vs feet (ft))
4. Looking at the picture you are given again (ex. the dimensions in a projectile motion problem)

From my personal experience and mistakes, these are the common errors as a result of reading the question too quickly.

These things make a BIG difference in your grade and I’ll prove my point right now (forgive me if you are not a STEM major and you don’t understand what I am about to say).

Let’s say I am given the units in feet, but because I am SO used to doing everything in meters, I use 9.81 m/s² instead of 32.2 ft/s² in the question just out of habit and as a result, I get the wrong answer even though I did the correct procedure.

The professor will still mark you down for that mistake because this is one of the critical things that you must pay attention to in order to truly express your knowledge.

By the way, if you are given a question with units, I highly recommend writing them down on the side in the question so you do not lose track of them. We comprehend at least 7 times more of what we write than what we just read.

Now for the picture, really look at it and see if you can get any good details.

You don’t want to be stuck on one question all because you oversaw 1 little detail that proved crucial to the question.

I will show you a little trick to overcoming this in this post that will allow you to tackle any of these “hidden and difficult” questions with as much ease as possible (provided you know the concepts of course).

Also for values, you should write those on the side as well to retain them easily. You will better spot the negatives and the positives when you do this. A -5 and a 5 can mean everything in your answer!

Now as far as key words are concerned, you can do any of the following:

1. Write the word out
2. Underline them
3. Circle them

Yes, the common trend here is to write everything out.

But key words are very special in that they affect your whole approach to the question and how you set the problem up or what answer you bubble in.

I won’t go into great detail with an example, but know what key words show up and know how they can affect your answer. You will thank yourself later when you realize that point.

And yes, write them down!

Handling Difficult Questions

Now this is important because regardless of how much you studied, you will face these types of questions.

Here’s how to approach them:

When skimming the test, mark a note of them in your head to do them later.

You must knock out the easy questions first in order to build momentum to answer the difficult questions.

Your brain is going to secretly think about what possible ways there are to answer the difficult questions while you answer the easy questions.

Now when you get to the difficult questions, your brain will have a way to tackle it. You will do that and if you are still stuck, here’s what you do:

Completely start the problem from scratch.

Why?

Because if you know the concepts, you know the way that it needs to be solved.

Chances are, if you are stuck, it’s not because you don’t know how to solve the question.

It’s because there’s a typo somewhere.

Meaning, you wrote something down that you didn’t intend to write down and it broke up your train of thought.

For instance, you might’ve written 3600 seconds by accident when you meant to write 60 seconds.

And that affected your answer.

If you do the problem again when you have a mental block, you will catch the error at least 80% of the time because you know it. It was just a flaw of nature that threw you out of whack.

And if all else fails with doing the problem again, just do this:

Go With Your Gut

There’s always that hidden nudge that tells you “Hey, you should do this instead of that. Why aren’t you doing this?”

In most cases, it’s right assuming you know the concepts behind what’s you are doing.

This is the one thing that will never lead you wrong when it comes to making any important decision in life. It is very vital to listen to it.

If it can save you from losing 20 points on an exam, please do what it says and nothing else.

Your head will try to reel you in many directions, but your gut will lead you in 1 direction.

And that direction is the right way to go when you did the legwork up to that point.

So if all else fails, go with it.

And as for scenario C, when you gotta turn it in, you gotta turn it in!

That is the last plan of attack.

Oh, and don’t leave any question unanswered.

You won’t get any point for not trying!

And that is you game plan for test taking!

I can assure you that if you printed this post out, took notes and take action on the information here, you will never have to worry about another test again and you will never have to succumb to failure!

You’ll crush it all of the time!

Happy studying my new acquaintance and if you enjoyed this post, definitely subscribe to Join the Island below with your email for more action packed posts on college, productivity and reaching your true potential sent straight to your email from the greatest blog on Earth!

And leave a comment with what you took away from this post. I’d be very pleased to know what you want to accomplish.

Until next time,

This is Evan signing off.

PS: If you want to get through college like a rock star billionaire investor, make sure you read the 25000+ word Ultimate Guide to College blog post right here where I explain everything you need to do from preparing for college to making sure it’s the economically correct choice for you and what you need to do in order to position yourself ahead of the crowd when looking for a job!