Multiple-Choice Strategy
There are three ways to attack a multiple-choice test:
1.Start at the first question and keep going, question by
question, until you reach the end, never leaving a question
until you have either answered it fully or made an educated
guess.
2.Answer every easyquestion—the ones you know the
answers to without any thinking at all or those requiring the
simplest calculations—first, then go back and do the harder
ones.
3.Answer the hardestquestions first, then go back and do the
easy ones.None of these three options is inherently right or wrong. Each may
work for different individuals. (And I’m assuming that these three
approaches are all in the context of the test format. Weighted sections
may well affect your strategy.)
The first approach is, in one sense, the quickest, in that no time is
wasted reading through the whole test trying to pick out either the
easiest or hardest questions. Presuming you do not allow yourself to
get stumped by a single question so that you spend an inordinate
amount of time on it, it is probably the method most of you employ.
The second approach ensures that you will maximize your right
answers—you’re putting those you are certain of down first. It
may also, presuming that you knock off these easy ones relatively
quickly, give you the most time to work on those that you find
particularly vexing.
Chapter 8 ■ How to Study for Tests 193