Students today have plenty to worry about just getting through the experience of education as smart and unscathed as they can. There are homework assignments and papers and projects and exams and who knows how many other thing to think about that, on their own, would stress out almost anyone. However, on top of all these stressors, students must also worry about any number of standardized tests that they need to do their best on. Some of the tests will determine what sort of universities will consider them for enrollment, while others will decide if they are qualified to continue on to the next grade.

Invariably, though, performing well on the test will have a major impact on that student taking the test, whether that means not getting into the school of your choice, or being held back a grade, or even just knowing that you will have to take the same test over again because you did not do well enough on your first time around. So, when students are faced with an impending standardized test that they need to do well on, often they will spend dozens and dozens of hours, not to mention hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars, getting ready for that test. It can be extremely stressful, very distracting, and, oddly enough, it can often be pretty unproductive.

In the rush to prepare for the exam, too many students mistake an excess of time and effort for a productive strategy. Anyone can do better on standardized tests by following a few simple steps, which I\’ll outline here.

The first thing someone who wants to prepare for any standardized test, such as the SAT, LSAT, ACT, ISEE, or SSAT should do is to understand the rules of that particular test. Each test has its own little nuances, such as different policies on wrong answers choice (some are penalized, some are not), essays which may be graded or not graded, and so on. A surprising number of people who prepare for these tests never take the time to learn all these little details, when just a few minutes on the website of the company who makes the test will tell you what you need to know.

Once you know the basics, get some practice tests. It is of the utmost importance that you only use real, actual practice questions from the company that makes the test. The reason for this is that each company make practice questions according to rigidly defined set of standards, and only that company knows all of the standards that go into making those questions. If you were to buy practice questions from another company, and if you became good answering those questions, you may find that on test day the little tips and strategies you picked up on the other company\’s questions don\’t actually work on the real thing, because other although the question may appear similar to the untrained eye, there are other things going on behind the scenes.

One you know the rules of the test and you have a set of practice questions to work with, you just need to practice with those questions. Take the practice test in real, timed conditions, and spend a lot of time going over the questions afterward. If you can understand exactly why you got each practice question wrong that you missed, you will be very good shape come test day. Hopefully then you can put the test behind you and worry about the other things going on in your academic career.

Author Bio: Laura Randall is passionate about helping people find the right LSAT course to prepare for that test, although she writes on many topics. She is most passionate about education, and she likes to help out with the Mike Barrett LSAT blog Testing Is Easy.

Category: Education
Keywords: standardized test,practice,practice questions,test day,test prep