What makes good students go bad – that is, choose the wrong answer when they know the right answer?
This is the first part of a discussion of how to take tests so you do not miss questions because you misread the question or answer. Students graduating from ProSchools’ real estate Prelicense course (we offer courses in Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington), generally pass the license exam with high scores the first time, when they are aware of some basic test-taking skills.
In the next few blogs, I’ll give some tips on how to improve your test-taking skills.
Except questions. These are the type of question most often missed simply because of a “stupid” mistake – putting the answer you know is right. Sometimes you do it because it is hard to think in the negative. (“Is choice A not true? No, it is true so it is not not true, so it is not the answer. Is choice B…? By the time you get to choice C, you are so exhausted you tell yourself, “That’s true,” and mark it as your answer).
To avoid this, on scratch paper, create columns A, B, C, D. For each question that is confusing, ask it choice A true, is B true, etc. Mark T if it is true, F if it is not. When you are done and have 3 Ts and one F, the answer to the question is the one that is F.