Testing Strategy

Well, every week now we have been taking a "cold" reading assessment. "Cold" means it is a test on a passage or story the students have not read or worked with before. The following are some tips/strategies that we have discussed in class to help us perform better on these tests:

1- Just know that the writer is out to trick you! He or she wants to know if you are a serious reader. (We already know you are smart!) That is why we read every single answer choice, to make sure we choose the BEST choice.

2- Read EVERYTHING!!! Including the directions, questions, captions, side-bars...

3- Go back into the text for EVERY question. 99% of the time there is direct evidence in the text to support a correct answer. At this grade level, there are many that come straight-forward from the text.

4- When we read a question, decide on what the key words are or event is then go and find those words/event in the text.

5- Once you find the section the question is refering to, READ AROUND REAL CAREFUL- that means, a little before and a little bit after to make sure we don't miss anything.

6- Pay attention to words in a CAPITALS and that are bolded.

7- If we need to figure out what a word means or what word means the same as one in the text, we should use the "Plug it in, Plug it in" strategy. That means that we should "plug in" all the possible answer choices into the text to see which makes the most sense.

8- Always do your BEST, and don't "poop" out! Work just as strong on the end as you did in on the beginning. (It is a common pattern for students to miss more questions at the end of a test, because they got tired reading the end of the passage and/or of answering the questions.)

Remember- Friday is test day! Believe in yourself!