Tips for Multiple-Choice Questions
There are whole industries dedicated to teaching you how to take a test. In reality, no amount of test-
taking strategy will replace knowledge of the subject. If you are on top of the subject, you’ll most likely
do well even if you haven’t paid $500 for a test-prep course. The following tips, when combined with
your statistics knowledge, should help you do well.
Read the question carefully before beginning . A lot of mistakes get made because students don’t
completely understand the question before trying to answer it. The result is that they will often answer
a different question than they were asked.
- Try to answer the question before you look at the answers . Looking at the choices and trying to
figure out which one works best is not a good strategy. You run the risk of being led astray by an
incorrect answer. Instead, try to answer the question first, as if there was just a blank for the answer
and no choices. - Understand that the incorrect answers (which are called distractors) are designed to appear
reasonable . Watch out for words like never and always in answer choices. These frequently indicate
distractors. Don’t get suckered into choosing an answer just because it sounds good! The question
designers try to make all the logical mistakes you might make and the answers they come up with
become the distractors. For example, suppose you are asked for the median of the five numbers 3, 4,
6, 7, and 15. The correct answer is 6 (the middle score in the ordered list). But suppose you misread
the question and calculated the mean instead. You’d get 7 and, be assured, 7 will appear as one of the
distractors. - Drawing a picture can often help visualize the situation described in the problem. Sometimes,
relationships become clearer when a picture is used to display them. For example, using Venn
diagrams can often help you “see” the nature of a probability problem. Another example would be
using a graph or a scatterplot of some given data as part of doing a regression analysis. - Answer each question . You will earn one point for each correct answer. Incorrect answers are worth
zero points, and no points are earned for blank responses. If you aren’t sure of an answer, eliminate
as many choices as you can, then guess. - Double check that you have (a) answered the question you are working on , especially if you’ve left
some questions blank (it’s horrible to realize at some point that all of your responses are one question
off!) and (b) that you have filled in the correct bubble for your answer. If you need to make changes,
make sure you erase completely and neatly.
Tips for Free-Response Questions
There are many helpful strategies for maximizing your performance on free-response questions, but
actually doing so is a learned skill. Students are often too brief, too sloppy, or too willing to assume the
reader will fill in the blanks for them. You have to know the material to do well on the free-response, but
knowing the material alone is not sufficient—you must also demonstrate to the reader that you know the
material. Many of the following tips will help you do just that.
Read all parts of a question first before beginning . There’s been a trend in recent years to have
more and more subparts to each question (a, b, c, ...). The subparts are usually related and later parts
may rely on earlier parts. Students often make the mistake of answering, say, part (c) as part of their
answer to part (a). Understanding the whole question first can help you answer each part correctly.