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4 Test Taking Tips - The Objective Exam

As a college student, are you serious about academics? Are you physically and emotionally preparing yourself for the scholastic responsibility a university requires?

Remember, there are many facets of college that require work, dedication, motivation and focus; however, in this instance, developing your strategy for effective test taking will be the heart of today’s read.

Objective test taking encompasses multiple choice, true-false, and matching type questions. Your ability to read quickly and analyze the question along with using a large portion of your memory skills is crucial. Most often the right answer is given. You must be able to identify it through recogntion.

Finding out ahead of time whether the questions are general or specific is helpful. Specific questions link to specific answers which requires less overall learning, while general questions require more meticulous learning, in which case, cramming is not your best strategy.

The professor will usually give instructions prior to the exam, for instance:

OBJECTIVE EXAMINATION

Part 2 of the Senior Exercise in Religious Studies

1. This is a short-answer, objective exam, consisting of 100 questions covering all seven traditions/areas taught in the Department, plus theories and methods in the study of religion.

The traditions/areas are:

Judaism
Christianity
Religions of the Americas
Islam
South Asian religions
Buddhism
East Asian religions

The theory/methodology questions will be based on material from Religion 101 (or 102 or 103), Approaches to the Study of Religion, and Senior Seminar.

2. Format: One-word or short sentence definitions.

Example:
Q. The name of the Fourth Gospel is _______________ .

4 Important Objective Exam Tips:

1. Beware of the “Careless Error.”

• Read ALL directions carefully.
• Monitor your time.
• Have patience, don’t rush but DON’T waste time on one question.
• Don’t second guess your first instinct. Many times than not your first instinct is correct.
• Allow enough time to read through and spot errors or misread/blank items.

2. Start With What You Know

This helps you gain confidence in the credit you will receive from those questions you have answered accurately and may bring about understanding for the difficult questions you skipped as you read through the test.

(As you are going through and answering the easier questions, mark each difficult question that you need to come back to.)

3. Process of Elimiation

As you return to the more difficult questions, go through each one eliminating all wrong answers. This helps increase your odds of answering the question correctly.

For muliple choice questions, reduce your options by looking for choices that do not necessarily connect grammatically. Teachers may not word the wrong choices as well as the right choice.

4. Give It Your Best Guess: Think Critically

If you are left with no choice but to “venture a guess,” think decisively before giving your "guess"timate. There are often tiny clues and indicators that may help you answer the question correctly.

• Be cautious of absolute terms, such as: always, never, invariably, none, all, every, and must. Statements using absolute words are less likely to be correct.

• Look for qualifying terms, such as: frequently, most, typically, and often. Correct answers will most often have qualifying, detailed terminology.

When guessing, steer clear of absolutes and choose more in depth, qualifying statements. (This general rule can apply to multiple choice and true-false.)