Standardized Test Tips

1
Standardized Test Tips

• How to Take the Test

2
Seven Basic Rules

• Know the instructions for each subject test
• Dont waste precious test time re-reading the
  directions
• Use your test booklet as scratch paper
• Answer Easy Questions first
• Mark the booklet to know which questions to come
  back to
• Answer Hard Questions last
• 1 minute is too longskip it and come back later

3
Seven Basic Rules

• Avoid Carelessness
• Mistakes happen when moving too quickly
• Dont let frustration or lack of confidence
  affect the answers of the other questions
• Be careful bubbling answers
• Bubble in groups of 5 or at the end of the page
• In your head, say the question and the answer
  when filling in bubbles

4
Seven Basic Rules

• Always guess when you dont know the answer
• You have a 100 chance of getting the answer
  wrong if it is left blank

5
Strategies for the English Test

• Skim the entire passage before answering the
  questions
• Instructions warn of reading beyond the question
• Being familiar with entire passage avoids the
  problem
• Eliminate Answer Choices
• Cross out anything that jumps out at you as
  WRONGnarrow down your choices

6
Strategies for the English Test

• Eliminating answer choices for questions with
  multiple errors
• While these seem harder, you can benefit from
  these
• If you cannot spot one error, you may spot
  another
• OMIT answer option
• OMIT eliminates redundant or irrelevant answers
  (try reading passage w/o that line)

7
Strategies for the English Test

• Areas to know for punctuation
• Commas
• Apostrophes
• Semicolons
• Colons
• Parentheses and Dashes
• Periods, Question Marks, and Exclamation points
• Bold means most likely to be on test

8
Strategies for the English Test

• Commas
• Misplace, misused, and missing commas are most
  frequently on the test
• Commas separate independent clauses joined by a
  conjunction
• Indep. clause contains a Sub. and Verb
• Conjunctions FANBOYS-for, and, nor, but, or,
  yet, so
• Ex Lesley wanted to sit outside, but it was
  raining.

9
Strategies for the English Test

• Commas in a series
• 3 or more items in a list separated by commas
• Can either be noun or verb phrases
• Ex The hungry girl devoured a chicken sandwich,
  pizza, and ice cream.
• Commas separate multiple nonessential adjectives
  modifying a noun
• Ex Rebeccas new dog has long, silky hair.

10
Strategies for the English Test

• Commas set off dependent phrases/clauses from the
  main clause of a sentence
• Dependent clauses are not sentences on their own.
  They depend on independent clauses
• Use a comma if the dependent phrase/clause is
  used at the beginning of the sentence.
• Ex After preparing an elaborate meal for
  herself, Anne was too tired to eat.
• Ex Anne was too tired to eat after preparing an
  elaborate meal for herself.

11
Strategies for the English Test

• Commas to set off nonessential phrases and
  clauses
• This part of the sentence could be taken out
  without affecting the meaning of the sentence
• Ex Everyone voted Carrie, who is the most
  popular girl in our school, prom queen.
• Commas are NOT used when the phrase is important
  to the sentence
• Ex The girl who is sick missed three days of
  school.

12
Strategies for the English Test

• Commas set off Appositives
• Appositives rename/restate the modified noun
• Ex The dog, a Yorkshire Terrier, barked at all
  the neighbors.

13
Strategies for the English Test

• Apostrophes
• Possessive and singular nouns
• Singular noun s singular possessive noun
• Ex My mom forgot the dogs food. (ONE dogs
  food)
• Possessive and plural nouns
• Plural noun plural possessive noun
• Ex My mom forgot the dogs food. (MANY dogs
  food)

14
Strategies for the English Test

• Apostrophes
• Possessive and pronouns
• Possessive pronouns DO NOT get an apostrophe
• Ex I ? my she ? her they ? their
• Ex The dog chewed on its tail.
• Ex You should give him your wallet.
• What is the antecedent of EACH example?

15
Strategies for the English Test

• Problem Word Forms (learn these!)
• Its / Its
• Their / There / Theyre
• Your / Youre
• Whose / Whos

16
Strategies for the English Test

• Semicolons
• Semicolon and two independent clauses
• Put a semicolon to separate 2 indep. clauses in
  the same sentence.
• Ex Julie ate five brownies Eileen ate three.

17
Strategies for the English Test

• Colon Problems
• A colon should always be preceded by an
  independent clause
• Ex (WRONG) The ingredients I need to make a
  cake flour, oil, water, sugar, and butter.
• Ex (RIGHT) I need several ingredients to make a
  cake flour, oil, water, sugar, and butter.
• Never more than ONE colon in a sentence

18
Strategies for the English Test

• Subject-Verb Agreement
• Singular verbs go with singular subjects
• Plural verbs go with plural subjects
• Ex (Sing.) The man wears four ties.
• Matt, along with his friends, goes to Coney
  Island.
• Ex (Pl.) The men wear four ties each.
• Matt and his friends go to Coney Island.
• Tests will try to separate the sub and verb to
  confuse you.
• Ex An audience of thousands of people who have
  come from afar to listen to live music seem
  terrifying to a nervous performer. Is this
  correct?

19
Strategies for the English Test

• Collective Nouns
• Can be singular or plural (i.e. committee,
  family, group, number, and team)
• Ex (Sing.) The number of people living in
  Florida varies from year to year.
• Ex (Pl.) A number of people living in Florida
  wish they had voted for Al Gore.

20
Strategies for the English Test

• Indefinite Pronouns
• The following are always singular and tend to
  appear on tests

Another Everybody Nobody
Anybody Everyone No one
Anyone Everything Somebody
Anything Each Someone
21
Strategies for the English Test

• Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement
• Will find these errors frequently on tests
• Antecedent is the word to which a later pronoun
  refers back to
• Pronoun must agree in both gender and number with
  its antecedent
• Ex (WRONG) Already late for the show, Mary
  couldnt find their keys.
• Ex (RIGHT) Already late for the show, Mary
  couldnt find her keys.

22
Strategies for the English Test

• Verb Tenses
• Different Verb Tenses in One Sentence
• Verb tenses must be logical if they happen at all
• Ex Next year, I was on an ocean voyage. Is this
  correct?
• Tricky Verbs on Tests (know tenses)
• Lie/Lay Break Drank Blow
• Swim Choose Run Sit
• Begin Sang Arise Get

23
Strategies for the English Test

• Adverbs / Adjectives
• To describe a noun ADJECTIVE
• To describe a verb, adjective, adverb ADVERB
• Ex (WRONG) She shut him up quick
• (RIGHT) She shut him up quickly.
• Ex (WRONG) My mom made dinner good.
• (RIGHT) My mom made dinner well.

24
Strategies for the English Test

• Comparative / Superlative Modifiers
• Comparative modifiers compare one thing to
  another
• Require comparison WITH something else
• Ex My boyfriend is nicer than yours.
• Superlative modifiers tell how one thing compares
  to everything else
• Ex My boyfriend is the nicest boy in the world.

25
Strategies for the English Test

• Sentence Fragments
• Incomplete sentences that tend to look like this
• Ex We didnt go outside. Even though the rain
  had stopped.
• To fix fragments
• Attach to the indep. clause next to it
• Ex We didnt go outside, even though the rain
  had stopped.
• Turn the fragment into a full sentence
• Ex We didnt go outside. The rain continued to
  fall.

26
Strategies for the English Test

• Comma splices
• Occurs when two independent clauses are joined
  together by a comma with no conjunction
• Ex Bowen walked to the park, Leah followed.
• FIX Bowen walked to the park. Leah followed.
• FIX Bowen walked to the park Leah followed.
• FIX Bowen walked to the park, and Leah followed.

27
Strategies for the English Test

• Run-On Sentences
• A comma splice, minus the comma
• Ex Joan runs every day she is preparing for a
  marathon.
• To fix a run-on, you must identify where the
  sentence must be split
• Joan runs every day. She is preparing for a
  marathon.
• Joan runs every day because she is preparing for
  a marathon.

28
Strategies for the English Test

• Misplaced Modifiers
• Modifiers must come directly before or after the
  word it is modifying
• Ex Having eaten six hotdogs, nausea overwhelmed
  Jane.
• FIX Having eaten six hotdogs, Jane was
  overwhelmed with nausea.
• FIX Jane, having eaten six hotdogs, was
  overwhelmed with nausea.

29
Strategies for the English Test

• Parallelism
• When you see a list underlined on the test, look
  for a parallelism error
• Ex with a list of verbs, check to make sure they
  are all in the same tense.
• (WRONG) In the pool area, there is no spitting,
  no running, and dont throw cigarette butts in
  the water.
• (RIGHT) change last part of list throwing
  cigarette butts in the water.

30
Strategies for the Reading Test

• Prose Fiction (Passage 1) Read/skim the WHOLE
  passage
• Social Science/Humanities/Natural Science
  (Passages 2-4)
• Read/Skim the whole passage
• Read 1st sentence and Last sentence and look for
  repeated words in EACH paragraph

31
Strategies for the Reading Test

• Writing Strategy Questions
• Involves improving the effectiveness of a passage
  through revision and editing
• Types
• Transitions and Topic Sentences
• Additional Detail and Evidence
• Big Picture Purpose

32
Strategies for the Reading Test

• Transitions and Topic Sentences
• Find the best way to open or conclude a paragraph
• May ask for a sentence to act as both a topic
  sentence AND a transition
• If you know what the two paragraphs are about,
  you can eliminate answer choices that do not work
  as topic sentences

33
Strategies for the Reading Test

• Additional Detail and Evidence
• Choose the answer that provides the best
  additional detail or evidence
• Usually to help support another part of the
  paragraph/passage
• You must understand the point that is being made
  in the paragraph(s)/passage
• Look for TRANSITIONS that work as flags
• However (means the information is
  contradictory)
• Moreover (means the info. is in agreement)

34
Strategies for the Reading Test

• Big Picture Purpose
• These always come at the END of the passage
• Ask you to identify the passages
• Main point
• (authors) Intended purpose
• Intended audience
• Test comprehension of the passage

35
Strategies for the Reading Test

• Big Picture Purpose (cont)
• The answer choices come in two parts
• Part 1 Yes/No
• Part 2 Give an explanation for the answer

36
Strategies for the Reading Test

• Organization
• Deal with the logical structuring of the passage
  on the level of the sentence, paragraph, or
  passage as a whole
• 3 Types of questions
• Sentence Reorganization
• Paragraph Reorganization
• Passage Reorganization

37
Strategies for the Reading Test

• Sentence Reorganization
• Often involve the placement of a modifier
• Half of the organization questions on the English
  Test will ask you to reorder the sentences.
  Study MODIFIERS!

38
Strategies for the Reading Test

• Paragraph Reorganization
• Reorder sentences WITHIN a paragraph
• Best Approach decide which sentence should come
  first and then eliminate possible answer choices
• Always look for the topic sentence of the
  paragraph!

39
Strategies for the Reading Test

• Passage Reorganization
• Appear at the end of the passage
• You will either have to
• Insert a sentence where it would best belong
• Move a paragraph to a new location
• These are strategy questions
• If asks for a sentence to be placed at the start
  of the para. then it is supposed to be a TOPIC
  sent.
• Placed at the end? Concluding/clincher sentence.
• Remember the LOGICAL order of an essay

40
Strategies for the Reading Test

• Redundancy
• Ability to spot redundant (repeated) phrases
• They say the same thing twice NO GOOD!
• These questions will almost always give the
  option to OMIT. Redundant OMIT!

41
Strategies for the Reading Test

• Appropriate Word Choice and Identifying Tone
• Word choice pick the right one
  (there/their/theyre)
• Content gives clues to tone
• History/Culture formal style (omit slang,
  contractions, personal pronouns)
• Personal Essay less formal style