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What if you really, truly cannot decide on an answer? Strategic guessing. Sometimes, no matter how hard you studied, you really, truly cannot figure out the correct choice. You can’t even narrow it down to two choices! In that case, you have to guess. Don’t randomly guess “c” or close your eyes and point like some students do! You can significantly increase your odds of making the correct choice by guessing strategically :
Try to identify the obvious distractor and eliminate it.
Eliminate any choice using an absolute.
Eliminate the “all of the above” or “none of the above” choices. Eliminate the choice that does not grammatically agree with the stem.
What are strategies for true/false tests? Segmented true/false statements. Some true/false tests questions (which are actually statements) are relatively simple and straightforward. Example: In high school and college, however, true/false statements are usually complex. They are longer and may contain multiple segmented parts , which can make it hard to determine the answer. Example: T F Scientists classify life forms in five kingdoms, Monera, Protists, Fungi, Plant and Animal, which are further classified into Phyla. PRODUCT PREVIEW When given a compound or complex statement such as the one above, on a true/false statement, read each segment or part set off by a comma as an independent statement . For the answer to be “true”, each segment must be true . If any one part is false, the entire statement is false. Example: T F Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton went to Columbia University and graduated with honors in 1966. T F Scientists classify life forms in groups called kingdoms.
For the answer to be true, each of the following must be true: she is/was Secretary of State
she graduated in 1966
she went to Columbia University she graduated with honors (BTW the answer is false . She went to Wellesley College and she graduated in 1969. It is true that she graduated with honors and has served as Secretary of State.)
THE 21st CENTURY STUDENT’S GUIDE TO STUDY SKILLS 189
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