Testing Tip of the Week: Choosing the Wrong Answer May Be the Right Approach

A tutor was working with a student helping her prepare for the SAT. She was scoring well on easy to medium type problems, but doing poorly on problems identified as difficult. He asked her what her strategy was for solving the difficult problems.  Here’s what she said.

 She told him she first eliminated the answers she knew were wrong, usually two of the four answer choices. Then, she considered the remaining two possibilities and went with the one that seemed the most likely correct. In other words, she went with her instinct. The problem was, her instinct was wrong most of the time, and she missed virtually all of the difficult level problems.

That’s the two-step approach I’ve recommended to parents and students. That is, first eliminate the answer choices you know are wrong, and then go with your instinct, your sense of what’s right. But, this strategy wasn’t working for her. Here’s what he suggested.

He told her that after eliminating the answer choices she knew were wrong, to then choose from the remaining answers the one she thought was likely wrong. Her scores improved the next time she took the SAT.

What do I make of this? What I’ve seen is that test publishers construct difficult problems that require complex thinking strategies in order to solve them.  If a student feels clueless after eliminating the answers he/she knows can’t be correct, then the strategy is worth a try. However, first try it on a practice test to see if it works.  Experiment.

Try Choosing the Wrong Answer.  That’s the testing tip of the week!

Curt Bumcrot, MRE  

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