A parent reached out to me. Her student got stuck on a problem on a private school math entrance practice test. Because she was stuck, she missed out on being able to finish 3 more questions that she probably could have answered.
If she understood these 3 things she could have improved her score.
- Write down what you know. Diagram or write out some kind of plan. Organize your thoughts, and try to come up with some plan. Think of any formula or rule that may work for this situation.
- Understand that you’ve used up the time for this problem. Get a feeling of what is an appropriate amount of time for each question.
- If there are multiple-choice questions, utilize elimination to reduce the number of questions to pick from. If you may not have enough time to answer all the questions, make sure that you have an answer for every question that you are submitting – as long as there is no penalty.
What we will do next time she and I meet is really dive in and see what she got stuck on the problem. We will find out how far she got on the problem, why she got stuck, and how to overcome getting stuck on a problem.
We’ll talk about breaking down what she knows, and how to solve the problem.
We’ll talk about timing and getting a feel for the exact amount of time that each problem has, and do some timing exercises.
We’ll talk about what strategies she has for breaking down information and what formulas/procedures/knowledge she has around the topic that was presented.
And we’ll talk about the value of getting those last 3 questions right, even if the one she was on is wrong – so she can showcase everything that she does know on the test.
That way she won’t get stuck and she can do her very best.
