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CAD Faculty Help Center
Test Taking Skills
Although continuous assessment is a key form of learning appraisal in CAD courses, we nevertheless help students with exam taking strategies and exam preparation skills.
Continuous assessment includes the use of quizzes, projects, papers and graded assignments. Where the course content can be logically examined in large pieces, mid-term and final exams are used. Three of the CAD courses provide practice and tips in the practical processes of how to prepare for and take tests.
- Pre-test preparation skills
- review strategies
- group collaboration on review
- study groups
- going through past exams
- anticipating exam questions and working on answers
- the role of notes in test preparation
- reading text review
- cramming avoidance
- estimating success
- issues of sleep and emotional preparedness
As students gain experience in taking tests within the CAD program, they start to recognise how certain strategies support them. CAD courses make all exam formats explicit on the course website, thus removing the element of surprise. Students should be confident that what they have learned will be tested in a familiar and expected way.
In-test strategies
Test-taking Rules of behaviour:
With large classes and small classrooms, CAD courses face constraints on the manageability of the testing environment. AUI students respond well to a controlled environment for tests and exams. They respond poorly to a chaotic testing environment. It is the teacher's duty to ensure maximum silence, maximum space between test-takers, and minimum opportunities to cheat.
In support of the controlled testing environment, CAD courses have instituted the following test-room rules of conduct:
- No talking by anyone, proctors or students
- No borrowing of equipment
- Pre-arranged seating
- No more than 20 students in a room; if a large room, then 2 proctors
- NO QUESTIONS FROM TEST-TAKERS (the test is for students to provide answers)
- Time increments posted on the board
- A calm and disruption-free atmosphere
If teachers enforce these rules, then students behave very well.
Test-taking strategies:
Having learned that certain verbs in test questions require specific types of answers, students can analyze test questions for 1) the verb denoting the answer required, and 2) key words that will help the test-taker focus on the information needed.
Examples of verbs and their meanings:
http://edtech.clas.pdx.edu/presentations/frr99/blooms.htm
Reminders for successful test-taking:
1. Look over the whole exam before writing answers. Identify instructions about choice or time allotted. Be aware of the time, and leave enough time for long or complicated answers.
2. Underline key words in the test question to formulate the answer. Think about the meaning of the verb and its relationship to the key words.
3. A “Why” or a “How” question asks for a lot more analysis than a “What”, “Who” or “When” question. A simple answer will not get marks for a complex question.
- “Why” looks for reasons or justifications à reasoning
- “How” looks for process or stages of development à logic
- “What”, “Who” or “When” asks for a fact that relies on memory
4. Questions with 2 or more clauses require complex answers, each part of which must satisfy one of the demands. Identify the number of things asked in the question.
5. The point value of the question suggests the quantity required in the answer. Two well-written and relevant sentences may satisfy the demands of a question valued at 2 or 3 points. Several paragraphs are needed to satisfy a question valued at 15 or 20 points.
Post-test strategies
The average student starting university has no clear understanding of how a given grade has been reached and often reacts to their grades on tests with disappointment, fear of failure and emotional distress. CAD teachers make overt efforts to minimise this emotional response to the grade and work on analytical reasoning to give the student tools for improvement. Thus, the class during which exams or tests are returned to the students is one where the test is reviewed, item by item. Appropriate test item responses are compared for content with those found less appropriate. Students are encouraged to look beyond the grade to the actual content of their response, and to see how a peer answered a question for a higher grade. While we are working on the development of critical thinking skills, we link the item response content objectively to the grade it incurred. This is a steep learning curve.
Tips for Post-test class sessions
- Do give the students time to digest their grades
- Don't allow them to indulge their emotional responses
- Do give them analyses of good answers
- Don't let them avoid confronting what, precisely, they need to improve
- Keep the exams in your office and invite any student who has a question to consult with you
- Use the test results as a learning opportunity
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