- Apr 01, 2022
How to Reduce Guessing During Testing Season
All educational institutions widely use multiple-choice at various levels during a student's session in a school, but it's a test that's highly susceptible to guesswork making it a very suboptimal assessment tool used to understand a child's performance. The reliability of a multiple-choice test is actually governed by the number of items it contains; however the longer the duration of the test, the more time consuming it is for some subject areas, it can be at times difficult to create new test items that are sufficiently distinct from previously used items.
As we conduct many MCQ tests for students at SAN Academy, it’s going to be crucial that all of us, and our students know when to rely on guessing and why students shouldn’t do it until and unless as a last resort. But there are even more important issues that the kids can be taught explicitly: what guessing is and how they can be taught the urge to overcome it.
There are many more sophisticated multiple-choice test formats that are and have been used dating back to more than 60 years, many of which offer significantly improved test reliability and reduced guesswork. At SAN Academy, our teachers are prepared for state-mandated testing in various ways that actually help a child go beyond worksheets and spiral review practice. Specifically, we conduct a few metacognitive tasks that target, redefine, and eliminate guessing as much as we can from a student's mind. These tasks usually involve habituation tasks, language frames, and expectations that will work in a variety of classrooms.
Here are a few tactics students can keep in mind for outsmarting any multiple-choice test:
- Students have given test-taking advice along with the expertise of "always go for the middle answer if you don't know" or "avoid any answer that has some words written like 'never,' 'always,' 'all,' or 'none'" at some point in your life. This conventional wisdom doesn't hold up against the statistics we rely upon. In fact, you get the answers "none of the above" or "all of the above" are considered 52% correct of the time. Choosing one of these answers gives students over a 90% improvement over random guessing.
- Students can also notice the longest answer on multiple-choice tests is usually correct. "Test makers have to make sure that right answers are indisputably right," however this "Often demands some qualifying language. They need not try so hard with such wrong answers." If one choice marked by the student is noticeably longer than its counterparts, it's likely or maybe the correct answer.
- Many exams, like the SATs, are randomized using computers, negating any patterns usually found in the order of the answers. However, no matter their order, answer choices that are incongruent with the rest are usually wrong, according to Poundstone. He gives the following sample answers from an SAT practise test, without including the question.
- Self-learning not helps a child gain confidence while solving problems but is also an ideal way to become a self-learner where the child wont depend on answers anymore. SAN Academy is one of the best Schools in Chennai that inculcates the spirit of self-learning through its holistic curriculum designed to make students competent in every sphere.
- That’s how students can reduce guesswork while attempting any test. Enrol your child at the best school in tambaram and prepare them for leadership through an extensive curriculum that induces self-learning and many extracurricular activities.