Strategic Studying and Test-Taking Skills Training

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byAlison Pence-Ward
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The Intervention

Strategic Studying and Test-Taking Skills Training is designed to teach students a set of techniques that can improve their ability to study for tests and quizzes and enhance test and quiz performance. The teacher introduces the skills, then practices, and reinforces the skills with the student. Such practice and reinforcement should occur frequently and consistently at first (e.g., X times per week), then can be faded as the student builds independent skills.

Strategic Studying: Memorization Skills

The study skills section below pertains to material that needs to be memorized. These strategies can be helpful for classes such as history and science when learning and memorization of content such as facts and dates is required for success in the class.

Preparing to Implement

  • When the materials involve memorization of information, begin by preparing a set of lists of information that the student needs to learn. Lists may be in a specific order (e.g., steps of the scientific method), or nonspecifically (e.g. elements on the periodic table; names of planets, branches of the judicial system). Ideally, the teacher should generate these lists and show the student the connection to current classroom materials (e.g., textbooks, slide deck, handouts or assignments). If the student has multiple teachers, it may be helpful to start with building the list and learning strategies for one class before expanding to the rest of their courses.
  • Familiarize yourself with the following study strategies: acrostics, the loci method, acronyms, and flashcards. (See the intervention steps below for information about these strategies and visit the Beacon Flash Card intervention for how to teach use of flashcards effectively.)

Steps to Implement Memorization Skills

  • Meet with the student to discuss their current study skills strategies. Find out what the student thinks has been working and what has not been working. Help the student learn the importance of further developing study skills. 
  • Explain to the student the following 3 strategies of how to learn and remember lists:

Initial Letter Strategy (Acrostics) –This strategy applies to learning lists in order. To do this, the student takes the first letter of each term and makes a sentence using these letters. An example of this is “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.” This acrostic is used to remember the order of math operations (e.g., p = parentheses, e = exponents, etc.).

Loci Method – This is also a learning strategy for ordered lists. To use this strategy, the student thinks of a familiar place that he/she typically walks through in the same manner (e.g., entering their house). For each location that the student passes through, he/she associates a term from the list (e.g., one concept with the front door, one concept with the first room of the house). It is also helpful to create a story that links each location,  more distinctive, odd or silly stories can make the list easier to remember. For example, to remember the reasons why President Clinton involved U.S. forces in the Balkans, the student might picture him/herself walking through his/her house. At the front door is a scared Albanian who needs our protection from being oppressed. Next the student walks into their living room and finds Slobodan Milosevic, who is known as the “butcher of the Balkans” drinking tea and watching TV! The student then walks into their kitchen and finds that everything is a disaster! There is no drinking water, no power to run the blender, and the telephone is out! Encourage the student to create their own imagery when using this strategy. Elaborate and ‘bizarre’ imagery works best!

Initial Letter Strategy (Acronym) – This strategy is best for lists, where the order does not matter. The way this is done is the student takes the first letter of each term that he/she needs to remember and makes a word out of these letters.  For example, to remember the Great Lakes, just remember HOMES: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior.

  • After explaining the three strategies, give the student the set of lists. Instruct the student to use the study strategies listed above to learn the content of the lists in order to prepare for a quiz or test.
  • Remind the student when taking the quiz or test to write the acrostic, the story, or the acronym used to learn the list.
  • Once the student has learned these strategies, it might also be beneficial for the teacher to assess the student’s current notetaking skills. If the student is struggling with notetaking, visit the Notetaking Training intervention on Beacon.

Test-Taking

Preparing to Implement

  • Gather examples of different test question types such as multiple-choice, true/false, matching, and essay, so that the student can practice with various question styles.
  • Familiarize yourself with the test-taking strategies in the intervention steps below.

Steps To Implement Test-Taking Strategies

  • While viewing the various types of questions, explain to the student the importance of always reading test and quiz directions very carefully before starting. It may help the student to underline or circle key words in the instructions and make sure they understand all parts before starting.
  • The student should then look over the test to see how much time they should allow themselves to spend on each section, given the amount of time they have to take the test. Help the student develop skills for budgeting their time. (e.g., checking to see how much time they have throughout the test.)
  • Introduce the test taking strategies below to the student.

Multiple Choice Tests

  • Start with the easiest questions first, and then return to the more difficult questions at the end OR Start with the first question, and circle or skip difficult questions so that you can return to those questions after all of the easy questions have been answered.
  • Pay close attention to questions that ask for something that “does not belong” or “is not” part of a group. These questions can be confusing and require paying close attention when selecting an answer.
  • Try to answer the question before looking at the choices.
  • Read ALL of the answer choices before choosing an answer.
  • Cross out wrong answer choices and choose an answer from the remaining ones.
  • If there is no penalty for guessing, don’t leave any answers blank.

True/False Tests

  • Read the entire question before answering.
  • Answer true only if the entire statement is true.
  • Answer false if any part of the statement is false.

Matching Tests

  • Read through both lists before answering any of the questions.
  • If answers can only be used once, cross off the answers that you have used as you use them.

Essay Tests

  • Read the question fully and make sure that you understand what the question is asking you to answer. Underline all the parts that you are expected to answer.
  • Follow these writing steps:
    • Plan your essay by outlining or creating bullet points of the points you want to make. Make sure the outline covers all parts of the question or prompt.
    • Write the essay. Create an opening statement or paragraph, answer all parts of the question or prompt, and create a summary or closing statement or paragraph
    • Reread and edit the essay
    • Add additional content, examples or supporting points to each part if you have time.
  • See resources for an example of an essay template.
  • Give the student several practice tests and have them practice using the test-taking strategies mentioned above.

Tips For Success

  • It may be helpful to create a poster with the test-taking strategies for each of the different types of tests.
  • If a poster is not feasible, help the student generate their own guide of test-taking strategies.

Evidence of Effectiveness

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