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Standardized Test Tips

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Title: Standardized Test Tips


1
Standardized Test Tips
  • How to Take the Test

2
Seven Basic Rules
  • Know the instructions for each subject test
  • Dont waste precious test time re-reading the
    directions
  • Use your test booklet as scratch paper
  • Answer Easy Questions first
  • Mark the booklet to know which questions to come
    back to
  • Answer Hard Questions last
  • 1 minute is too longskip it and come back later

3
Seven Basic Rules
  • Avoid Carelessness
  • Mistakes happen when moving too quickly
  • Dont let frustration or lack of confidence
    affect the answers of the other questions
  • Be careful bubbling answers
  • Bubble in groups of 5 or at the end of the page
  • In your head, say the question and the answer
    when filling in bubbles

4
Seven Basic Rules
  • Always guess when you dont know the answer
  • You have a 100 chance of getting the answer
    wrong if it is left blank

5
Strategies for the English Test
  • Skim the entire passage before answering the
    questions
  • Instructions warn of reading beyond the question
  • Being familiar with entire passage avoids the
    problem
  • Eliminate Answer Choices
  • Cross out anything that jumps out at you as
    WRONGnarrow down your choices

6
Strategies for the English Test
  • Eliminating answer choices for questions with
    multiple errors
  • While these seem harder, you can benefit from
    these
  • If you cannot spot one error, you may spot
    another
  • OMIT answer option
  • OMIT eliminates redundant or irrelevant answers
    (try reading passage w/o that line)

7
Strategies for the English Test
  • Areas to know for punctuation
  • Commas
  • Apostrophes
  • Semicolons
  • Colons
  • Parentheses and Dashes
  • Periods, Question Marks, and Exclamation points
  • Bold means most likely to be on test

8
Strategies for the English Test
  • Commas
  • Misplace, misused, and missing commas are most
    frequently on the test
  • Commas separate independent clauses joined by a
    conjunction
  • Indep. clause contains a Sub. and Verb
  • Conjunctions FANBOYS-for, and, nor, but, or,
    yet, so
  • Ex Lesley wanted to sit outside, but it was
    raining.

9
Strategies for the English Test
  • Commas in a series
  • 3 or more items in a list separated by commas
  • Can either be noun or verb phrases
  • Ex The hungry girl devoured a chicken sandwich,
    pizza, and ice cream.
  • Commas separate multiple nonessential adjectives
    modifying a noun
  • Ex Rebeccas new dog has long, silky hair.

10
Strategies for the English Test
  • Commas set off dependent phrases/clauses from the
    main clause of a sentence
  • Dependent clauses are not sentences on their own.
    They depend on independent clauses
  • Use a comma if the dependent phrase/clause is
    used at the beginning of the sentence.
  • Ex After preparing an elaborate meal for
    herself, Anne was too tired to eat.
  • Ex Anne was too tired to eat after preparing an
    elaborate meal for herself.

11
Strategies for the English Test
  • Commas to set off nonessential phrases and
    clauses
  • This part of the sentence could be taken out
    without affecting the meaning of the sentence
  • Ex Everyone voted Carrie, who is the most
    popular girl in our school, prom queen.
  • Commas are NOT used when the phrase is important
    to the sentence
  • Ex The girl who is sick missed three days of
    school.

12
Strategies for the English Test
  • Commas set off Appositives
  • Appositives rename/restate the modified noun
  • Ex The dog, a Yorkshire Terrier, barked at all
    the neighbors.

13
Strategies for the English Test
  • Apostrophes
  • Possessive and singular nouns
  • Singular noun s singular possessive noun
  • Ex My mom forgot the dogs food. (ONE dogs
    food)
  • Possessive and plural nouns
  • Plural noun plural possessive noun
  • Ex My mom forgot the dogs food. (MANY dogs
    food)

14
Strategies for the English Test
  • Apostrophes
  • Possessive and pronouns
  • Possessive pronouns DO NOT get an apostrophe
  • Ex I ? my she ? her they ? their
  • Ex The dog chewed on its tail.
  • Ex You should give him your wallet.
  • What is the antecedent of EACH example?

15
Strategies for the English Test
  • Problem Word Forms (learn these!)
  • Its / Its
  • Their / There / Theyre
  • Your / Youre
  • Whose / Whos

16
Strategies for the English Test
  • Semicolons
  • Semicolon and two independent clauses
  • Put a semicolon to separate 2 indep. clauses in
    the same sentence.
  • Ex Julie ate five brownies Eileen ate three.

17
Strategies for the English Test
  • Colon Problems
  • A colon should always be preceded by an
    independent clause
  • Ex (WRONG) The ingredients I need to make a
    cake flour, oil, water, sugar, and butter.
  • Ex (RIGHT) I need several ingredients to make a
    cake flour, oil, water, sugar, and butter.
  • Never more than ONE colon in a sentence

18
Strategies for the English Test
  • Subject-Verb Agreement
  • Singular verbs go with singular subjects
  • Plural verbs go with plural subjects
  • Ex (Sing.) The man wears four ties.
  • Matt, along with his friends, goes to Coney
    Island.
  • Ex (Pl.) The men wear four ties each.
  • Matt and his friends go to Coney Island.
  • Tests will try to separate the sub and verb to
    confuse you.
  • Ex An audience of thousands of people who have
    come from afar to listen to live music seem
    terrifying to a nervous performer. Is this
    correct?

19
Strategies for the English Test
  • Collective Nouns
  • Can be singular or plural (i.e. committee,
    family, group, number, and team)
  • Ex (Sing.) The number of people living in
    Florida varies from year to year.
  • Ex (Pl.) A number of people living in Florida
    wish they had voted for Al Gore.

20
Strategies for the English Test
  • Indefinite Pronouns
  • The following are always singular and tend to
    appear on tests

Another Everybody Nobody
Anybody Everyone No one
Anyone Everything Somebody
Anything Each Someone
21
Strategies for the English Test
  • Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement
  • Will find these errors frequently on tests
  • Antecedent is the word to which a later pronoun
    refers back to
  • Pronoun must agree in both gender and number with
    its antecedent
  • Ex (WRONG) Already late for the show, Mary
    couldnt find their keys.
  • Ex (RIGHT) Already late for the show, Mary
    couldnt find her keys.

22
Strategies for the English Test
  • Verb Tenses
  • Different Verb Tenses in One Sentence
  • Verb tenses must be logical if they happen at all
  • Ex Next year, I was on an ocean voyage. Is this
    correct?
  • Tricky Verbs on Tests (know tenses)
  • Lie/Lay Break Drank Blow
  • Swim Choose Run Sit
  • Begin Sang Arise Get

23
Strategies for the English Test
  • Adverbs / Adjectives
  • To describe a noun ADJECTIVE
  • To describe a verb, adjective, adverb ADVERB
  • Ex (WRONG) She shut him up quick
  • (RIGHT) She shut him up quickly.
  • Ex (WRONG) My mom made dinner good.
  • (RIGHT) My mom made dinner well.

24
Strategies for the English Test
  • Comparative / Superlative Modifiers
  • Comparative modifiers compare one thing to
    another
  • Require comparison WITH something else
  • Ex My boyfriend is nicer than yours.
  • Superlative modifiers tell how one thing compares
    to everything else
  • Ex My boyfriend is the nicest boy in the world.

25
Strategies for the English Test
  • Sentence Fragments
  • Incomplete sentences that tend to look like this
  • Ex We didnt go outside. Even though the rain
    had stopped.
  • To fix fragments
  • Attach to the indep. clause next to it
  • Ex We didnt go outside, even though the rain
    had stopped.
  • Turn the fragment into a full sentence
  • Ex We didnt go outside. The rain continued to
    fall.

26
Strategies for the English Test
  • Comma splices
  • Occurs when two independent clauses are joined
    together by a comma with no conjunction
  • Ex Bowen walked to the park, Leah followed.
  • FIX Bowen walked to the park. Leah followed.
  • FIX Bowen walked to the park Leah followed.
  • FIX Bowen walked to the park, and Leah followed.

27
Strategies for the English Test
  • Run-On Sentences
  • A comma splice, minus the comma
  • Ex Joan runs every day she is preparing for a
    marathon.
  • To fix a run-on, you must identify where the
    sentence must be split
  • Joan runs every day. She is preparing for a
    marathon.
  • Joan runs every day because she is preparing for
    a marathon.

28
Strategies for the English Test
  • Misplaced Modifiers
  • Modifiers must come directly before or after the
    word it is modifying
  • Ex Having eaten six hotdogs, nausea overwhelmed
    Jane.
  • FIX Having eaten six hotdogs, Jane was
    overwhelmed with nausea.
  • FIX Jane, having eaten six hotdogs, was
    overwhelmed with nausea.

29
Strategies for the English Test
  • Parallelism
  • When you see a list underlined on the test, look
    for a parallelism error
  • Ex with a list of verbs, check to make sure they
    are all in the same tense.
  • (WRONG) In the pool area, there is no spitting,
    no running, and dont throw cigarette butts in
    the water.
  • (RIGHT) change last part of list throwing
    cigarette butts in the water.

30
Strategies for the Reading Test
  • Prose Fiction (Passage 1) Read/skim the WHOLE
    passage
  • Social Science/Humanities/Natural Science
    (Passages 2-4)
  • Read/Skim the whole passage
  • Read 1st sentence and Last sentence and look for
    repeated words in EACH paragraph

31
Strategies for the Reading Test
  • Writing Strategy Questions
  • Involves improving the effectiveness of a passage
    through revision and editing
  • Types
  • Transitions and Topic Sentences
  • Additional Detail and Evidence
  • Big Picture Purpose

32
Strategies for the Reading Test
  • Transitions and Topic Sentences
  • Find the best way to open or conclude a paragraph
  • May ask for a sentence to act as both a topic
    sentence AND a transition
  • If you know what the two paragraphs are about,
    you can eliminate answer choices that do not work
    as topic sentences

33
Strategies for the Reading Test
  • Additional Detail and Evidence
  • Choose the answer that provides the best
    additional detail or evidence
  • Usually to help support another part of the
    paragraph/passage
  • You must understand the point that is being made
    in the paragraph(s)/passage
  • Look for TRANSITIONS that work as flags
  • However (means the information is
    contradictory)
  • Moreover (means the info. is in agreement)

34
Strategies for the Reading Test
  • Big Picture Purpose
  • These always come at the END of the passage
  • Ask you to identify the passages
  • Main point
  • (authors) Intended purpose
  • Intended audience
  • Test comprehension of the passage

35
Strategies for the Reading Test
  • Big Picture Purpose (cont)
  • The answer choices come in two parts
  • Part 1 Yes/No
  • Part 2 Give an explanation for the answer

36
Strategies for the Reading Test
  • Organization
  • Deal with the logical structuring of the passage
    on the level of the sentence, paragraph, or
    passage as a whole
  • 3 Types of questions
  • Sentence Reorganization
  • Paragraph Reorganization
  • Passage Reorganization

37
Strategies for the Reading Test
  • Sentence Reorganization
  • Often involve the placement of a modifier
  • Half of the organization questions on the English
    Test will ask you to reorder the sentences.
    Study MODIFIERS!

38
Strategies for the Reading Test
  • Paragraph Reorganization
  • Reorder sentences WITHIN a paragraph
  • Best Approach decide which sentence should come
    first and then eliminate possible answer choices
  • Always look for the topic sentence of the
    paragraph!

39
Strategies for the Reading Test
  • Passage Reorganization
  • Appear at the end of the passage
  • You will either have to
  • Insert a sentence where it would best belong
  • Move a paragraph to a new location
  • These are strategy questions
  • If asks for a sentence to be placed at the start
    of the para. then it is supposed to be a TOPIC
    sent.
  • Placed at the end? Concluding/clincher sentence.
  • Remember the LOGICAL order of an essay

40
Strategies for the Reading Test
  • Redundancy
  • Ability to spot redundant (repeated) phrases
  • They say the same thing twice NO GOOD!
  • These questions will almost always give the
    option to OMIT. Redundant OMIT!

41
Strategies for the Reading Test
  • Appropriate Word Choice and Identifying Tone
  • Word choice pick the right one
    (there/their/theyre)
  • Content gives clues to tone
  • History/Culture formal style (omit slang,
    contractions, personal pronouns)
  • Personal Essay less formal style
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