Title: Standardized Test Tips
1Standardized Test Tips
2Seven 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
3Seven 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
4Seven 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
5Strategies 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
6Strategies 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)
7Strategies 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
8Strategies 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.
9Strategies 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.
10Strategies 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.
11Strategies 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.
12Strategies 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.
13Strategies 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)
14Strategies 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?
15Strategies for the English Test
- Problem Word Forms (learn these!)
- Its / Its
- Their / There / Theyre
- Your / Youre
- Whose / Whos
16Strategies 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.
17Strategies 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
18Strategies 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?
19Strategies 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.
20Strategies 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
21Strategies 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.
22Strategies 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
23Strategies 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.
24Strategies 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.
25Strategies 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.
26Strategies 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.
27Strategies 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.
28Strategies 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.
29Strategies 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.
30Strategies 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
31Strategies 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
32Strategies 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
33Strategies 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)
34Strategies 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
35Strategies 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
36Strategies 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
37Strategies 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!
38Strategies 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!
39Strategies 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
40Strategies 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!
41Strategies 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