Archive for November, 2009

GED test taking tips

Posted by Test Preparation on November 16th, 2009

You may be unfamiliar with standardized tests, such as the GED. There are many ways for you to familiarize yourself with this type of examination. Listed below are points to help you become familiar with the GED, some of which may be applied to other standardized tests, as well.

How to beat the clock

Become comfortable with the standardized format: When you are practicing to take the GED, pretend that you are under the same time constraints as you would be during the test. Stay calm, pace yourself, and pay attention to the clock. Practice these techniques thoroughly. After simulating the test only a few times, you will boost your chances of doing well and you will be able to sit down for the actual GED much more confidently.

Become familiar with the directions: Make sure you read and understand the directions before you take the exam, so that you do not waste valuable testing time.

Know the format for each section before yuo actually take the test: This will not only save you valuable time, but also ensure that you are familiar enough with the exam to avoid anxiety (and the mistakes that come from being anxious).

Work on the easier questions first: Mark the very difficult questions (in the test booklet, not on the answer sheet) and continue. Remember, only correct answers will be counted in your score. You will not be penalized for guessing, so when you have either answered or marked all of the questions, go back and answer any of the difficult questions that you may have skipped. If you find yourself working too long on one question, mark it and go on. Be sure that you are marking your answer in the space that corresponds to the number of the question in the test booklet.

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What are some GED test-taking tips?

Posted by Test Preparation on November 8th, 2009

Prepare physically: Get plenty of rest and eat a well-balanced meal before the test so that you will have energy and will be able to think clearly. Intense studying at the last minute probably will not help as much as having a relaxed and rested mind.

Arrive early: Be at the testing center at least 15 to 20 minutes before the starting time. Make sure you have time to find the room and to get situated. Keep in mind that many testing centers refuse to admit those who come once the Test has started. Some testing centers operate on a first come, first served basis; so you want to be sure that there is an available slot for you on the day that you’re ready to test.

Think positively: Tell yourself you will do well. If you have studied and prepared for the test, you should succeed.

Relax during the test: Take half a minute several times during the test to stretch and breathe deeply, especially if you are feeling anxious or confused.

Read the test directions carefully: Be sure you understand how to answer the questions. If you have any questions about the test or about filling in the answer form, ask before the test begins.

Know the time limit for each test: Some testing centers allow extra time, while others do not. You may be able to find out the policy of your testing center before you take the test, but always work according to the official time limit. If you have extra time, go back and check your answers.

Have a strategy for answering questions: You should read through the reading passages or look over the materials once and then answer the questions that follow. Read each question two or three times to make sure you understand it. It is best to refer back to the passage or graphic in order to confirm your answer choice. Don’t try to depend on your memory of what you have just read or seen. Some people like to guide their reading by skimming the questions before reading a passage. Use the method that works best for you.

Don’t spend a lot of time on difficult questions: If you’re not sure of an answer, go on to the next question. Answer easier questions first and then go back to the harder questions. However, when you skip a question, be sure that you have skipped the same number on your answer sheet. Although skipping difficult questions is a good strategy for making the most of your time, it is very easy to get confused and throw off your whole answer key.

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What should I know to pass the GED test?

Posted by Test Preparation on November 7th, 2009

You are tested on knowledge and skills you have acquired from life experiences, work experiences, television, radio, books, magazines, newspapers, consumer products, and advertising. Many questions will involve the roles that adults play: citizen and community member, worker, and/or family member. Many documents will be “how to” documents especially found in business settings.

In particular, keep these facts in mind about the specific tests:

  • A. Part I of the Language Arts, Writing Test requires you to recognize or correct errors, revise sentences or passages, or shift constructions in the four areas of organization, sentence structure, usage, and mechanics (capitalization, punctuation, and spelling). The types of letters and memos you would normally write are likely to be included. Informational texts from business-related documents will be used.

    In Part II you will have to write a well-developed essay on a topic familiar to most adults. You will be asked to have an audience and a purpose in mind for the essay. You will write in a real life context and adopt a role. You will be asked to generate (produce) ideas, express them clearly, organize the ideas, and connect them appropriately.

  • B. Three of the five tests - Social Studies, Science, and Language Arts, Reading - require that you answer questions based on reading passages or interpret graphs, charts, maps, cartoons, or diagrams. Developing strong reading and thinking skills is the key to succeeding on these tests.

    The Social Studies Test looks at history in terms of critical points in time and clusters (groups) of historical periods. Psychology, the science of behavior, is not a separate content area, but it is included in other social studies areas. More emphasis is placed on US & world history and civics and government.

    The Science Test is based on the National Science Education Standards (NSES). It emphasizes scientific understandings and places special emphasis on the environment and on health questions. Science educaiton focuses on the activities or ways in which people use science in their daily lives.

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Knowing where you stand: Scoring considerations

Posted by Test Preparation on November 6th, 2009

Okay, you know the GMAT’s format and how many questions it has and so on. But what about what’s really important to you, the crucial final score? Probably very few people take standardized tests for fun, so here’s the lowdown on scoring.

How the GMAT testers figure your score

Because the GMAT is a computer adaptive test, our verbal and quantitative scores aren’t based just on the number of questions you get right. The scores you earn are based on these three factors:

The difficulty of the questions you answer
The questions become more difficult as you continue to answer correctly, so getting tough questions means you’re doing well on the test.

The number of questions that you answer
If you don’t get to all the question in the verbal and quantitative sections, your score is reduced by the proportion of questions you didn’t answer. So if you fail to answer 5 of the 37 quantitative questions, for example, your raw score would be reduced by 13 percent and your percentile rank may to from the 90th percentile to the 75th percentile.

The number of questions you answer correctly
In addition to scoring based on how difficult the questions are, the GMAT score also reflects your ability to answer those questions correctly.

GMAT essay readers determine your analytical writing assessment (AWA) score. College and university faculty members from different disciplines read your responses to the essay prompts. Two independent readers score each of the two writing assignments separately on a scale from 1 to 6, with 6 being the top score. Your final score is the average of the scores from each of the readers for each of the essays.

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Understanding the computerized format

Posted by Test Preparation on November 5th, 2009

The GMAT can be taken only as a computer-adaptive test (CAT). The CAT adapts to your ability level by presenting you with questions of various difficulty, depending on how you answer previous questions. If you’re answering many questions correctly, the computer gives you harder questions as it seeks to find the limits of your impressive intellect. If you’re having a tough day and many of your answers are wrong, the computer will present you with easier questions as it seeks to find the correct level of difficulty for you.

With the CAT format, your score isn’t based solely on how many questions you get right and wrong but rather on the average difficulty of the questions. You could miss several questions and still get a very high score, so long as the questions you missed were among the most difficult available in the bank of questions. At the end of each section, the computer scores you based on your level of ability.

Answering in an orderly fashion
With the CAT format, the question order in the verbal and quantitative sections is different from the order on paper exams that have a test booklet and answer sheet. On the CAT, the first ten questions of the test are preselected for you, and the order of subsequent questions depends on how well you’ve answered the previous questions. So if you do well on the first ten questions, question 11 will reflect your success by being more challenging. If you do poorly on the initial questions, you’ll get an easier question 11. The program continues to take all previous questions into account as it feeds you question after question.

Perhaps the most important difference of the CAT format is that because each question is based on your answers to previous questions, you can’t go back to any question. You must answer each question as it comes. After you confirm your answer, it’s final. If you realize three questions later that you made a mistake, try not to worry about it. After all, your score is based on not only your number of right and wrong answers but also the difficulty of the questions.

Observing time limits
Both the verbal and quantitative sections have a 75 minute time limit. Because the quantitative section has 37 questions, you have about two minutes to master each question. The verbal section has 41 questions, so you have a little less time to ponder those, about a minute and three quarters per question. You don’t have unlimited time in the analytical writing section either; you have to write each of the two essays within 30 minutes, for a total of 60 minutes spent on analytical writing.

These time limits have important implications for your test strategy. Your GMAT score depends on the number of questions you’re able to ansewr. If you run out of time and leave questions unanswered at the end of a section, you’ll essentially reduce your score by the number of questions you don’t answer.

Honing your computer skills for the GMAT
Technically challenged, take heart. You need to have only minimal computer skills to take the CAT format of the GMAT test. In fact, the skills you need for the test are far less than those you’ll need while pursuing an MBA! Because you have to type your essays, you need basic word-processing skills. For the multiple-choice sections, you need to know how to select answers using either the mouse or the keyboard. That’s it for the computer skills you need to take the GMAT.

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Forming first impressions: The format of the GMAT

Posted by Test Preparation on November 4th, 2009

The GMAT is a standardized test, and by now in your academic career, you’re probably familiar with what that means: lots of questions to answer in a short period of time, no way to cram for or memorize answers, and very little chance of scoring one hundred percent. The skills tested on the GMAT are those that leading business schools have decided are important for MBA students: verbal, quantitative, and analytical writing.

Getting familiar with what the GMAT tests

Stadardized tests are supposed to test your academic potential, not your knowledge of specific subjects. The GMAT focuses on the areas that admissions committees have found to be relevant to MBA programs. The following sections are an introduction to the three GMAT sections:

Demonstrating your writing ability
You type two original analytical writing samples during the GMAT. The test gives you thirty minutes to compose and type each of the essays. One of the samples asks you to analyze an issue, and the other presents you with an argument to analyze. You’re expected to write these essays in standard written English. Although you won’t know exactly the nature of the issue and argument you’ll get on test day, examining previous topics gives you adequate preparation for the types of topics you’re bound to see.

The readers of your GMAT essay score you based on the overall quality of your ideas and your ability to organize, develop, express, and support those ideas.

Validating your verbal skills
The GMAT verbal sections consists of 41 questions of three general types: the ubiquitous reading comprehension problem, sentence correction questions, and critical reasoning questions. Reading comprehension requires you to answer questions about written passages on a number of different subjects. Sentence correction questions test your ability to spot and correct writing errors. Critical reasoning questions require you to analyze logical arguments and understand how to strengthen or weaken or weaken those arguments.

Quizzing your quantitative skills
The quantitative section is pretty similar to most standardized math sections except that it presents you with a different question format and tests your knowledge of statistics and probability. In the 37-questions section, the GMAT tests your knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry and data interpretation with standard problem-solving questions. You’ll have to solve problems and choose the correct answer from five possible choices.

Additionally, GMAT data sufficiency questions present you with two statements and ask you to decide whether the problem can be solved by using the information provided by just the first statement, just the second statement, both statements, or neither statement.

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Things to take to the GMAT (and things to leave at home)

Posted by Test Preparation on November 3rd, 2009

The most important thing you can bring to the GMAT is a positive attitude and a willingness to succeed. However, if you forget your admission voucher or your photo ID, you won’t get the chance to apply those qualities! In addition to the voucher and ID, you should also bring a list of five schools where you’d like to have your scores sent. You can send your scores to up to five schools for free if you select those schools when entering your pretest information at the test site. You can, of course, list fewer than five schools, but if you decide to send your scores to additional schools later, you’ll have to pay. If you can come up with five schools you’d like to apply to, you may as well send your scores for free.

Because you can take two optional five-minute breaks, we recommend you bring along a quick snack like a granola bar and perhaps a bottle of water. You can’t take food or drink with you to the testing area, but you are given a little locker that you can access during a break.

There’s really nothing else to bring. You can’t use a calculator and you’ll be provided with an erasable notepad (which is a lot like a mini dry-erase board), which you’re required to use instead of pencil and paper.

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Timing the GMAT test perfectly: When to take the GMAT & what to bring

Posted by Test Preparation on November 2nd, 2009

Which MBA programs to apply to isn’t the only decision you have to make. After you’ve figured out where you want to go, you have to make plans for the GMAT. You need to determine when’s the best time to take the test and what you should bring with you when you do.

When to register for and take the GMAT

When’s the best time to take the GMAT? With the computerized test, this questions has become more interesting. When the exam was a paper-and-pencil format with a test booklet and an answer sheet full of bubbles, you had a very limited choice of possible test dates - about one every two months. Now you’ve got much more flexibility when choosing the date and time for taking the test. You can choose just about any time to sit down and click answer choices with your mouse.

Registering when you’re ready

The first step in the GMAT registration process is scheduling an appointment, but don’t put off making this appointment the way you’d put off calling the dentist (even though you probably would like to avoid both!) Depending on the time of year, appointment times can go quickly. Usually, you have to wait at least a month for an open time. To determine what’s available, you can go to the official GMAT web site www.mba.com and select “Take the GMAT.” From there, you can choose a testing location and find out what dates and times are available at that location. When you find a date and time you like, you can register online, over the phone, or by mail or fax.

The best time to take the GMAT is after you’ve had about four to six weeks of quality study time and during a period when you don’t have a lot of other things going on to distract you. Of course, if your MBA program application is due in four weeks, put off your books and schedule an appointment right away! If you have more flexibility, you should still plan to take the GMAT as soon as you think you’ve studied sufficiently. All of the following circumstances warrant taking the GMAT as soon as you can: (more…)

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