Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2014 12:52 am
TheCatt wrote:I've usually looked at them as stupid exercises of rote memorization, and why would I waste brain power on memorizing things I don't really need to know?
Different sort of tests. The SAT, GRE, GMAT, LSAT, etc don't require knowledge or information. Oh, it helps to know some big vocabulary words with one small part of the SAT and GRE, but it isn't necessary to know the words to get the questions right. All the rest of the questions on the test give you all the information you need in the question.
Even then it's not about doing it straightforwardly. The way they vet the test questions means they all come in easy, medium, and hard variety. Easy ones most people get right, so the quick gut answer is right. Hard ones most people get wrong, so for all but the brightest test-takers, the quick gut answer is wrong. So is the second-best gut response. With no other thought that gets you down to 50/50 for those and you've quickly done 2/3 of the test and gotten 75% of that right. That leaves enough time on the medium questions to go slow and get them all correct. And now you know the secret of standardized test taking.
The one exception to all that is the MCAT - the one for med school - which expects you to know a variety of sciences. But even that one I almost aced without having taken the sciences in question with easy/medium/hard strategy and using info gleaned from some questions to answer others in the same field. But I didn't teach that one, because MCAT students are way too damn uptight, and telling them I did that well without the right background would have crushed their fragile spirits.
Edited By TPRJones on 1398574586