Our Baseline:
We recently completed an entire practice (baseline) exam. In order to benefit the most from this process, it is important to analyze your performance on the multiple-choice questions. In addition to charting progress (number correct & number incorrect - this number is to remain private) we will record the kinds of questions you, personally, missed.
Your Assignment:
This assignment, if done correctly, will take several hours. Do not leave it until the last day!
1. Review the answers to the multiple choice section you recently completed. Just as we annotate in class, you will mark up your test in order to determine your performance breakdown. We are looking to identify the types of questions you, "tend to do well on" and those with which you, "tend to struggle." (You are looking for patterns.)
2. Read the M.C. section overview
3. Read the Question Types (1-8)
4. Read the Styles of Questioning (A- C)
5. Assess, from your performance on the multiple choice section, your strengths and weakness with the Question Types and Styles of Questioning listed on our blog. Once you have identified the patterns in your performance, read through "Strategies to Consider" at the bottom of the page. Identify your most critical strategies, as we move forward with the course.
Assignment Parameters:
- Your blog should refer to specific question types, styles and test taking strategies. In addition, unless you are the first to post, refer to an observation or future strategy discussed by one of your classmates.
- This is a meta-cognitive activity. Be specific about your understanding of yourself as a learner. Responses should be a minimum of 250 words. (Please do not make reference to your M.C. section score. )
- * Blog Response Due Date: Monday, September 19th
A.P. Literature and Composition – M.C. Section Overview:
I. INTRODUCTION
• 1 Hr. test
• 55 questions (about one minute per question, including reading time)
• Divide time per passage – be ruthless! About 15 minutes per passage.
• Four passages about 12-16 questions per passage
• Essential to practice at home
• Essential to analyze any wrong answers – spot trends and personal weaknesses, then fix them! Understand why a wrong answer is wrong, especially in practice.
• Lose 1/4 point on wrong answers
• Multiple choice = 45% Essays = 55%
• Typical: 2 prose/ 2 poems
• Test only uses literature from 1575—present (no Middle English or Old English)
• One passage will include a minority writer
• Expect 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th century passage
Question Types:
1. Situation
• who? to whom? (poetry)
• subject of 3rd Paragraph (prose)
2. Structure
• poetry: how stanzas relate
• what word in ______ relates back to ______
• what divisions represent its structure
• prose: how one paragraph relates to another
• progression of thought and overall structure
3. Theme
• whole and parts
4. Grammar and Word Meaning
• poetry: specific word choice definitions within context
• pronoun references/antecedents
• paraphrase word choice
• prose: subject of long sentence is…
5. Diction
• poetry: Use of _______ indicates
• poet’s idea of _________ is suggested by _______
• prose: choice of verbs in paragraph 4 suggests _______
• speaker’s anger is implied by ________
6. Images/ Figurative language/ Literary Technique
• which one? Where else in work?
• Purpose of a metaphor
• analogy in 2nd paragraph
7. Tone (perhaps metrics in poetry)
8. Rhetoric (mostly in prose)
• function of last sentence
• effect of shift in point of view
Styles of Questioning:
A. FACTUAL
• phrase presents example of…
• all are Figurative language except
• Man in line ___ is pictured mainly in his role as ___
• in line ___ the ___ is seen chiefly as …
• in line ___ the speaker regards himself as …
• beginning in ___ speaker does which …
• excerpt is written in …
• according to the speaker, …
• “they” in line ___ refers to …
• the object of “to” in line ___ is …
B. MAIN IDEA
• ______ hated ______ because _____
• parable of _______ serves to _______
• _______ believed human nature is ________
• which best describes ______ at the end
• tone
• which describes how ____ felt about …
• passage is concerned with …
• relation between line ____ and line ___ is best described as …
• main point about ___ is …
• line ___ speaker attempts to …
• style is characterized by …
• irony rests chiefly on ______
C. HIDDEN IDEA
• ____ interpreted to mean
• phrase evokes ______
• image of _______ refers to …
• ________ most likely represents ______
• can be inferred
• in line ___ the phrase “ ____” means _____
• line ___ suggests that …
• can be inferred speaker would agree with …
* REASONS ANSWERS ARE WRONG
1. Irrelevant to the question
2. Contradictory to the passage
3. Unreasonable (the “Huh?” choice)
4. Too general or too specific
5. Never addressed in the passage
6. Look for the SPECIFIC WORDS that make the answer wrong. Remember the difference between a right answer and the BEST (credited) answer. More than one can be right; look for the best. Avoid distractions!
Strategies to consider as we move forward w/ M.C. questions:
1. After reading the passage, students should read each question and anticipate what the answer might be before looking at the answer choices. Many students are nervous when taking the exam, and any strategies that help them focus and concentrate are good. When students get down to two answers, both of which seem correct, I advise them to choose the one that is most specific.
2. I also instruct the students to read actively rather than passively. I encourage them to underline words, phrases, or sentences in the passage that they think might be important. I show them how to look for patterns, motifs, repetition, and/or contrasts. What they underline is probably not as important as the process. I emphasize that reading actively increases focus and improves comprehension. I ask them how many times they have read a passage then looked up and did not remember a thing they just read. Reading actively helps to curb that wandering mind! Students cannot afford to waste time on the multiple-choice section with several readings.
3. I explain that the most difficult kinds of questions are the ones that ask students to find "all of the following except" or any questions that require students to reread a large portion of the text. They might want to leave them until later, as these questions consume an inordinate amount of time.
4. The multiple-choice section always presents a combination of easy, medium, and difficult questions for each passage. These questions generally follow the chronology of the passage rather than transition from easiest to hardest or vice versa. The most important factor, however, is that they all are worth the same point value. Therefore, a sound strategy for students is to make sure they get credit for all the easy and medium answers first. A student who spends too much time on a single, hard question may not get to answer two or three easy questions in a later part of the exam. Additionally, I advise students to do a quick check of the number of the question and the number on the Scantron forms every time they see a zero (10, 20, 30, and so on). This double-check can keep them from getting off track, having to go back to find their error, and wasting valuable time.
5. When the question refers to a part of the sentence and asks for the meaning of a word or phrase in context, what a word refers to, or how a word functions, it is best to go back to the beginning of the sentence or even to the previous sentence and read completely to the end of the sentence to comprehend the meaning. I have seen questions that ask the student what the antecedent of "this" is, and the answer is found in the preceding sentence. Students may also want to read the sentence that follows because the answer could be there.
6. If students find themselves running out of time, they can take the following approaches:
A. Scan the remaining questions and look for either the shortest questions or the questions that direct them to a specific line or lines. These questions take less time to answer.
B. Look for questions that contain the answer without requiring the student to refer to the text. For example, "The sea slid silently from the shore" is an example of (B) alliteration. The student would not have to go back to the passage to find the answer.
7. One way to ensure that students finish the entire multiple-choice section is to have them scan the number of questions and divide the number by two. For example, if there are 54 questions, and students have 60 minutes to complete the section, students should be around question 27 after 30 minutes. Another strategy is to divide the time by the number of passages. For example, if students have four passages to read and one hour to complete the exam, they should allot 15 minutes to each passage. The advantage of this method is that every passage has a number of easy and medium questions, and by moving steadily the students will receive the maximum number of points. Do not assume that there will be four passages; while four is often the number of sections in the multiple-choice section, I have seen as many as five. One year a student told me she did not even get to the last passage because she assumed there would be only four. Students must take responsibility for managing their time on the exam.
For me I found that most of the factual or strait forward questions I answered correctly and were the majority of the points I earned. The incorrect answers were much more interesting. At first the majority were over-sights. I did not recognize how the best answer was best when it was in front of my face and maybe I didn’t understand the passage at first. The other option, in the beginning for error was over-thinking. The third I’ve seen was second guessing. I would categorize these questions in to these three groups and a fourth I’ll explain later. Over-sight is usually the least noticeable in order to avoid this you have to question why did I pick this and pause for a second before moving on. Over thinking is one where like in the tips you have to pick one of the best and move on. You can always come back later but not if you don’t finish. With over-thinking and not moving on comes second guessing, the best way to avoid this is to come back later and, making sure you do by, marking where in the booklet where you could have second guessed. The final and most horrid mistake I made was just plain guessing. If you follow the above methods you won’t have to guess at random and void this problem, the worst mistake you can make. This is what I found through my experiences and hope others can add on or even make better suggestions to avoid these and other issues.
ReplyDelete-Joe Rinick
Like Joe I found that I too struggled immensely when it came to the whole idea of second-guessing ones self. I found that every time I chose answer in my head I would immediately go back and look for a better answer because I thought I was already wrong. I also saw that I misread the passages a couple times and I overlooked detail that in return was the reason for me getting the answers wrong. I also agree with Joe when he says that over-thinking is one of the tips that I need to learn to follow because my over-thinking is what gets in the way most of the time when I'm taking any test in general not just in English. Like in the tips I do find questions that require to read a large portion of the text to be rather difficult because I become enveloped by frustration when I do not understand the context immediately.I get flustered when I know there is limited time and I'm re-reading to answer a simple question. Another tip that will improve my test taking skills will be the last tip. I need to learn how to manage my time better and answer specific questions accordingly so that I may be more confident in my work and not second guess my answers so much.
ReplyDelete- Jasmine Berrios :)
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ReplyDeleteLike Joe and Jasmine I too found myself consistently second-guessing myself. I found out that through questions 14-17 I had the right answers but second-guessed myself and changed it into a wrong answer. Not only did I second-guess myself I, like Jasmine, misread the passages and didn't fully understand the questions that were asked about a certain passage I had misread. Like Jasmine and Joe I also agree about the over-thinking of a question. I would also like to say that I agree with Jasmine about getting frustrated knowing that there is time limit because you start to focus about just getting the test done appose to finishing the test with correct answers. Although, I did struggle with second-guessing myself and over-thinking the questions I honestly think that I need to improve my time management because I was basically at war with the time always looking to see if I had enough time and whether I had enough time to go back and get a good grasp on the text but I couldn't, time was against me. So time management I would say is the most learning tip that I need to improve in. In order to do so I must practice reading a passage fluently and learn how to get a good understanding of the passage appose to just zipping right through the passage to get straight to the question where I don't fully understand the question. I hope others understand what I'm trying to say and follow the methods above because if you think about the methods it can become something repetitive in your test taking abilities.
ReplyDelete- Marc Cortes :) P.s. Sorry for all the deletions.
Unlike those who posted before me, I find myself having more trouble with questions that concern diction, main ideas, and hidden ideas than with second guessing myself. I find myself becoming a bit overconfident, and at some points rushing through problems. Like Marc, I need to work on my time management skills. Because I rush and become overconfident, assuming that I completely understand the author or poet’s intent, I end up making poor choices. I suppose that my real problem is failing to second guess myself as much as I should, so my problem is directly opposite to those who posted before me. The tip that would help me the most in regard to my test taking is probably tip number 5, which would help me to pay more attention regarding questions about diction or the ideas of the writer in question.
ReplyDelete-Adrián Anthony
Similarly to Adrian, I found it harder to find the main idea that was being conveyed, and especially hidden ideas. Questions like, “17. Which of the following word associated with Maggie best conveys how her mother would like her to be?” Really kind of threw me through a loop. Describing so complicated as a relationship, even if we are given only a few lines, can be very difficult. Likewise, a complicated piece is difficult to summarize in a phrase or even a sentence, a lot of the piece seems to slip through your fingers when that occurs. I also found that it was difficult for me to get into the readings making me actually care, as bad as it sounds, about what they were saying. This overall made the effect of me not comprehending the piece in its totality and the hidden meanings which could be the root cause for the problems I have discussed. Such neglect really affected my score negatively and that will be my future working point. Lastly, I have found that there is an interesting relationship for me between the amount of time I have the test and the number of questions I get wrong. I found that towards the end more and more questions were incorrect. I feel as if this was my lack of engagement as well. If I could be able to keep engaged and constantly analytical throughout the entire work, which is easier said than done, I would be much better off and my score would increase in my opinion.
ReplyDelete--Brandon Harris
The problems i faced with the test lean toward the issues Brandon and Adrian had that i kept on having a hard time finding the diction of certain phrases,finding the main ideas, and finding hidden ideas in the text. In addition, i most issues with conceptual questions and had difficulties analyzing certain elements in the story. For example, I question 11, i didn't have the right understanding as to how the Nows and the Laters were portrayed as. Also, in some manners, i had difficulty defining parts of a passage or the true meaning of a quote (like I said above) like in 18. I couldnt get the same consensus that most of you had that "other unexpected virtues" was defined as mocking Mrs. Tulliver. In some cases i double guessed but that occurred too few times for me to be considered as an issue i had with the test.
ReplyDeleteMuch like Adrian and Brandon Harris I find myself having trouble with the questions that involve main ideas, diction, and hidden ideas. When there was a word I didn’t know or a passage that I didn’t fully understand, I found myself becoming uneasy and unsure which is the correct answer as a result I almost always chose the incorrect answer. I entirely agree with what Brandon said, “a complicated piece is difficult to summarize in a phrase or even a sentence, a lot of the piece seems to slip through your fingers when that occurs.”, choosing the correct answer for passages that become increasingly larger and have answers that summarize the passage in only one sentence, is definitely one of my weak areas. In addition, when there were long passages toward the end of the test I found myself skimming through it in order to beat the clock. Consequently, I ended up skipping vital information within the passage that could have helped me choose the correct answer. From analyzing my test, questions that I had the least trouble with were questions that dealt with figurative language and rhetoric. Like what it said in strategy number 2, I found it helpful for me to underline important information within the passage.
ReplyDelete-Donovan Small
Like Brandon, the questions that gave me the most difficulty were the questions were the hidden meaning had to be identified. Questions like "30...the term 'Black limbo' (line 20)suggests." tended to trip me up. Because of the limited amount of time, I feel I don't get a full understanding of the text, this makes it harder to identify hidden meanings. The reasons for my mistakes can be boiled down to, like those above, time management. I tend to take more time than needed on the beginning, then, after a glance at the clock, I need to rush through the rest. The best way to fix this would probably be to plan out how much time i need for each sections it says in number 7 of the "Strategies to consider as we move forward w/ M.C. questions." The hardest questions for me were the hidden meaning questions but my trouble was due to my poor time management skills.
ReplyDelete-Dillon Melady
After going through all of the questions, I immediately noticed a highly dramatic pattern in my answers. For the first 28 questions, I was answering most of the questions correctly. From there, I went down hill; almost everything I answered for the second half of the test was wrong. I believe much of this has to do with my time management. I started rushing halfway through the test because I knew that I was running out of time. I didn’t even get to question 46 by the time limit, so I randomly circled answer choices for the last page of the test right before time went up. It is apparent that I took too long to answer each question at first, and began to miss answers frequently once I started rushing. Like Adrian, I noticed that many of the questions I got wrong were situation and theme based, as well as diction and word meanings. For instance, question 16 had confused me because I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening in the story. “Maggie submits to having her “abundant black locks plaited” (line 41) because she (E) wants to humor her mother in this matter”. I was not able to figure out this question because I didn’t fully understand what was happening in the short story. After looking at this question again, I now understand that Maggie’s mother wanted her to style her hair in a certain way that was considered fashionable. I was thrown off on this question mainly due to overlooking the words ‘locks’ and ‘coronet’, as I wasn’t fully aware of their meanings. If I was able to conclude that she was obeying her mother’s wishes out of humor, than I wouldn’t have chosen a wrong answer. Often during my reading, I wasn’t focused on the overall theme of the story, which consequentially made me answer most of the theme based questions wrong. I probably could have overcome this weakness if I decided to annotate the pieces of literature, which I decided against in the interest of time. I now realize that this was a foolish idea, as I spent too much time rereading when it wasn’t entirely necessary. Overall, I believe I have the potential to do much better on the actual exam, but to get there I need to work on developing an in depth understanding of each story and its main ideas, while managing the short amount of time I have.
ReplyDelete~ David Roccapriore
I found that most of my incorrect answers are from factual questions regarding diction, tone, theme and structure. Unlike the first three people who posted, i did not second guess myself. My answers were answers but not the best one. Like Adrian, i think the solution to my problem is better time management skills. In my opinion, i made so many mistakes because i was rushing through reading the articles for the text. I did not read them properly, I merely skimmed through them because I thought that reading the whole passage would be a waste of time. This left me with little background information to base my thoughts upon making me pick the answer which is not the best. Like Nabeel I got the Nows and Laters question wrong because like him i did not have the right understanding of the passage due to not reading carefully. To do better in the next exam I would need to read the articles more carefully; pick up the tiny details of the passage quickly so that i can pick the best answer.
ReplyDeleteMuch like Adrian and Brandon, I found that my point of most weakness lies with the questions involving Diction and Main Ideas. One type of question that popped out to me which was particularly confusing, which was centered around Diction and Main Ideas, was question thirty-six, “In the context of the passage, the first sentence is best viewed as: (a) ironic (b) metaphoric (c) understated (d) redundant (e) hypothetical.” This question, which I answered incorrectly, gave me a hard time because it asks you to evaluate the whole piece through the first sentence, which if you don’t have a lot of time is very difficult to capture in a one word answer. Especially since the word choice which is given can be broad and two of the words can each be a possible answer, given the perspective of the reader on the given piece. One major aspect of the Multiple Choice section that tripped me up was the fact that the majority of the questions required the reader to look back into the text to derive the answer. This is very frustrating when you have a fifty-five minute time limit and have already taken the time to read the whole passage. But one method that I will use next time, which was not included in the “Strategies to consider…”, is to read the questions quickly before reading the passage and underline any lines in the passage which are part of the questions following the passage before actually reading the actual passage. This way I will be able focus on the parts of the passage that I will be asked to recall and evaluate. Hopefully this method will better my timing in answering the questions and my resulting score.
ReplyDelete~Ester Wasserman
As both Jasmine and Marc said before, time management was a key issue when I took the exam. Although I tried to allot only 15 minutes per a reading section, I was chronically going over my time limit by two to five minutes. Over about three sections, I had lost a lot of time and was unable to finish the last reading section. Some of the question types I struggled with were the hidden idea questions. It was hard for me to think about what the author was implying because the answer was not necessarily in the passage. I also had difficulty with the situation question types because in reading the text, I would not be thinking about the implications of a character or why the character did or said what he/she said. While reading the passage, all I can think about is that I am running out of time. The second passage with Maggie and her relationship with her parents was a perfect example of this. I got question 17 wrong because while reading the passage, I was not thinking of exactly how Maggie thinks of her daughter, just absorbing detail. I found the first tip helpful because that was a technique that I did not employ. I would like to see how much my score would improve if I utilize that tip. Tips on time management were also helpful, as time management was a problem that many people had. Tips on time management were also helpful. I think that with more practice I will get better.
ReplyDeleteAfter going through my incorrect answers on the baseline AP exam I have had many “ah-hah” moments. I have also identified several patterns in my answers. First off, like Franz and a number of other classmates, I found the most prominent error was not reading the entire passage but instead skimming through it. This caused me to struggle with question types such as theme and diction. For example, I found that most of the questions I got wrong were questions where you had to go back in the text and find the answer. I did poorly on these because I didn’t have a strong grasp of the story as a whole; which caused me to only understand a small snippet of the passage. A perfect example of this is question 48 from Sonnet 90, which asked, “In line 2, “bent” means..?” I chose (C) altered because by skimming through the sonnet it seemed that the main character had altered his life. However, if I had read the entire sonnet I would have realized that the correct answer was (D) determined because the main character was determined to win his friend back. In order to prevent this mistake in the future I plan to use strategy number 2 which suggests reading actively than rather than passively. This will not only allow me to have a more elaborate understanding of the text, but it will also save me precious time in the long run. Another pattern that caught my eye was the fact that after question 44 I got 9% of the remaining question correct. This was due to the fact that I ran out of time and just took a guess at what the remaining answers must be. In the end, to solve this problem I will try to break up each section into 15 minutes this way I won’t spend too much time on each passage. Also, I will try to use strategy 6 and look for questions that are easy or that don’t require any reading of the text. After assessing my incorrect answers and learning new strategies to help me; I feel that I have gained a positive understanding of the test. I also look forward to improving the next time I take it.
ReplyDelete-Russell Weeks
Much like David I seemed to begin my multiple choice questions on a high note getting most of my questions correct. However,coming close to the end of the test my questions started to take a turn for the worst. But at least there was a pattern to follow in order to learn from my mistakes. It seemed as though that out of all the questions I got wrong I was able to narrow the possible answers down to two possibilities. But the problem that I had was that I always second guessed myself. Most of the time if I went with my first choice I would have answered most of the questions correctly. Along the same lines because I kept second guessing myself, it caused me to take more time than I wanted on each passage. And therefore because I lost so much time in the beginning passages I felt that I needed to make up for that time in the later passages. This is what caused the decrease in performance toward the end of the test. I was no longer reading to understand rather I was reading just to finish the test making answering the questions that much more difficult. And because of this lake of understanding I was struggling on the types of questions that include the Main Idea and Hidden Idea's of the passage. And so these are the improvements that I need to work on,time management,and second guessing. -Brandon Simone
ReplyDeleteOn the Multiple Choice section of the AP Literature and Composition practice exam, I was running out of time and guessed on about the last 30, paying less attention to each question as I got farther along. Of the approximately 24 I did without time constraints, I got very few wrong, and one of those was because I left it blank; I must’ve figured I’d come back to it and then forgotten. The other questions I got wrong before going into total guess mode and not reading the passages, then later not even reading the question, included “author uses “_______” to form a connection between”, “the reference to “_________” does which of the following?”, “________ is presented as”, and “all of the following contrasts EXCEPT one between”. According to the list of question types, the first one seems to be diction, but I can’t figure out what the others are. So overall, just as Marc, Adrien, Dillon, David, Franz, Amina, and Brandon said before me, my problem is time management. It would probably help if I read the questions first and only read the parts of the passage needed for the questions, and only read all of it if a question refers to it as a whole and can’t be answered by the parts I read for other questions.
ReplyDelete-Andrew Bauer
I would have to agree with Joe and Jasmine because every time I read the passages I found myself reading the questions and going back looking for a better answer. Later, I find myself deciding whether I should stick with my first answer, which for the most part is usually correct. I also found myself running out of time just because of re-reading certain sections. The majority of these problems came from questions that had Situation, Grammar and Word Meaning and Diction.Now, as far as strategies, I would go with number 3 - which avoids going back to long passages. I’d also choose number 5 so that I can get a better understanding of the answer. And as number 7 says it’s easy to say, but hard to do. Most of the times and founded myself not sticking to the time requrment for each passages. In doing this, I found out that I should go with my gut feeling, but also leaving questions that involve going back into the passage for last due to the fact they are all worth the same amount but involves a little more effort.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI think the first problem I should address is the fact that i really didn't take the M.C as serious as I took the essays and I do apologize for my shortcomings. My biggest problem, which i see that most of my colleagues also have is the fact that oversight kicks in right after narrow down the answer to 2 and then I always choose wrong. For strategy I would have to choose number 6 but most of the time lol time is not a problem for me. Something else which i did not see on the strats was putting two people to work together especially if their strengths are completely different. My strengths lie in grammar, and also factual questions. A big surprise I had was that some of the questions actually made you go back to the passage and read a pretty big chunk and that was different from the other standardized testing from previous years so that really threw me off. Finally i think that second guessing is something that i struggle with , im also looking foward to see the plan that Ms.O'donnell is going to impliment, i have the upmost faith in her teaching.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the biggest problem, like many others, was second guessing myself. And apparently I have a problem with picking D as an answer of the MC because most of my missed answers were D. And like Brandon and Dillon, I had trouble with the "hidden meaning" questions. My time management skills were rather satisfactory in the sense that I was able to complete all the questions. However, I should pay more attention to the questions instead of racing right through them. Due to the racing, it heeded my ability to answer the questions correctly. I just need to take my time an carefully read and answer each question, without taking too much time and running out of it. I also believe that the mere adequacy of my MC score is attributed to my rather small scale of knowledge when it comes to poetry. Unlike, or perhaps like, many other students, I have not been exposed to a lot of poetry, so it is something I need to work on. And I certainly believe that with the right work and proper test taking technique taught this year, my MC score will certainly improve on the AP Lit test.
ReplyDeleteFor me the most trouble came from either word meanings or figurative language, I can't really tell do to the ambiguity but either way interpreting the language is my struggle. All the ones I got wrong also came in varying formats so it is mainly the topic and no the way it is presented that is hanging me up. A way to work this out is to do something I have never done before, annotate and read actively. Doing this, I believe, will help me greater understand and interpret the literary works. Another strategy I like was one posted by Mike, that two people with contrasting strengths and weaknesses should be paired so they can help each other.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I'm the super combination of everyone. I had a fairly decent score, but the questions that I did get wrong were from me not reading passages thoroughly (like Russell and Franz), and missing key points in diction, like Brandon and Adrian. Also, near the end, I realized how little time I had left, so I guessed on many questions, like Alex, seeing as there is no penalty for an incorrect answer. Finally, I frequently second guessed myself, like Inol, Jasmine and Joe. I've figured out that it's always best to go with your INITIAL gut feeling. I would overthink and I would think that my thinking was actually a gut feeling, but it wasn't. Wow, that was a confusing sentence. I actually did fairly well with questions with silly words like "except", "but", and "only". These are my strong questions, along with grammar and factual questions, like vitamind1000 (who I do not know the real life identity of).
ReplyDelete-Caroline
Like Caroline when it came to guessing my thought was "no penalty for an incorrect answer", which lead me to eeny, meeny, miny mo with the questions I didn't understand. I think that may have lead me to try a little less, especially when your kind of cheering for the 25% chance that you are right. However, I think my main struggle throughout the test was focus. This lead me to make some really simple mistakes I could have avoided like misreadings. After a while, when taking the test, I found myself constantly re-reading the same phrase over and over again and not picking up critical information because my focus was off. The questions I struggled with the most were structure, diction, main idea and hidden idea. What happened with those questions was the one that I thought was right and the actual right ones were opposite. So it was a case of "That's defiantly not the answer" when it really was. For a strategy I think that I'm both 1 and 2. I think that with 1 before I'm not sure of the answer that to think of what it might be then find the answer choice that best fits that could help to get rid of the guessing factor and giving up easily. Also number 2 would help me with the focus problem because the underlines would help me get the critical information in one read.
ReplyDelete