Topic

Test-Taking Skills

IEP Objective

When given a year-end achievement assessment with multiple choice questions, students will read each question, read all of the possible answers, and mark the best choice for each question with 90% accuracy.

Lesson Objective

When given three sample tests, students will follow the five steps of the DETER strategy with 5/5 correct.

Materials

DETER poster:

D—read the Directions

E—Examine the test

T—check the Time

E—Easy ones first

R—Review my work

Sample tests worksheets

Lesson Component

Teacher’s Questions, Instructions, Feedback, and Sample Error Correction

Anticipated Student Responses

Attending Cue

Teacher rings a bell.

SAY: “It’s time to put away your math and get ready for our study skills lesson. Let’s count to ten to see if everyone can be ready by the time we reach ten.”

Count to ten with students.

FEEDBACK: “Great job!”

Students put away math materials.

Count to ten with teacher.

Review & Prerequisite Check

SAY: “We are going to learn a strategy today to help us while we are taking a test. But first, I need to make sure you remember how to prepare for tests.”

ASK: “How many days should we take to prepare for a test?”

FEEDBACK: “Excellent!”

SAY: “I want you all to pull out a piece of paper and number it 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Next to each number write what you do on that day before the test.”

Teacher collects papers. If students do not remember the 5-day test preparation steps, review those instead of continuing on.

SAY: “Thank you for doing that! It looks like you all remember how to prepare for a test.”

“5 days!”

Students write responses.

Anticipatory Set & Purpose Statement

SAY: “Sometimes we do all of those things you just wrote down to prepare for a test. But when the teacher hands it out, we get stressed and don’t do as well on the test as we know we can.”

ASK: “How many of you have had that happen to you?”

FEEDBACK: “It’s happened to me too!”

Students raise hands.

SAY: “Today we are going to learn a strategy to help us when we take tests. Students who apply this strategy do better on their tests. This is called the DETER strategy.”

ASK: “What are we going to learn today?” “What will it help us do?”

FEEDBACK: “Very good! Let’s get started.”

“The DETER strategy” “Better on our tests”

Modeling

SAY: “The DETER strategy is an acronym, which means each of the letters stands for something we will do when we take a test.”

ASK: “What is the word DETER?”

FEEDBACK: “Very good!”

Teacher displays DETER poster on board.

SAY: “This poster has all the letters and what they stand for. When I take a test, I follow the steps on the poster. The first letter is D, which stands for directions. The first step is read the Directions.”

ASK: “What is the step I do for the letter D?”

FEEDBACK: “Very good! I read the directions.”

SAY: “On this test, my directions say Read each question and decide which option best answers the question. These directions are easy to understand. But sometimes, the directions are hard to understand. When they are, I ask the teacher to explain them.”

ASK: “What do I do if I don’t understand part of the directions?”

FEEDBACK: “Excellent!”

SAY: “After I read the directions, my next letter is E, which stands for Examine the test.”

ASK: “What does the E stand for?”

FEEDBACK: “Very good!”

SAY: “When I examine the test, I look at the whole test to see how much I have to do. I also look at what types of questions are on the test.”

ASK: “What do I look at when I examine the test?”

FEEDBACK: “Yes, I look at what types and number of questions on the test.”

SAY: “This test has 15 multiple choice questions.”

ASK: “What does this test have?”

FEEDBACK: “Very good!”

“An acronym.”

“Read the directions.”

“Ask the teacher.”

“Examine the test.”

“What types and number of questions on the test.”

“15 multiple choice questions.”

SAY: “I will write 15 multiple choice at the top of my paper so I remember there are 15 multiple choice questions. Now that I examined the test, the next letter is T. The T stands for check the Time.”

ASK: “What does the T stand for?”

FEEDBACK: “Very good responding!”

SAY: “I need to determine how much time I should spend answering each question. For this test, it says at the top that I have 30 minutes to complete the test.”

ASK: “How many minutes do I have to complete this test?”

FEEDBACK: “Yes, this is a test that I have 30 minutes to take!”

SAY: “I have 15 questions and 30 minutes, so I divide 30 (number of minutes) by 15 (number of questions), which gives me 2 minutes per question.”

ASK: “How much time do I have to answer each question?”

FEEDBACK: “Yes!”

SAY: “I will write 2 minutes at the top of my paper so I remember how much time I have for each question. My next letter now is the second E. This stands for Easy ones first.”

ASK: “What does the second E stand for?”

FEEDBACK: “Very nice! I do the easy ones first.”

SAY: “To do the easy ones first, I skim through the test and circle the numbers of the questions that will be easy for me to answer.”

ASK: “What do I do to the ones that will be easy for me to answer?”

FEEDBACK: “Very good!”

SAY: “On this test, it looks like questions 1, 2, 5, 7, 10, 11, and 14 will be easy. I circle those numbers, and then I go back and answer the ones I circled first. After I finish the easy ones first, then I answer the rest of the questions.”

ASK: “Which questions do I answer first?”

SAY: “My last letter is R, which stands for Review my work.”

ASK: “What does the R stand for?”

FEEDBACK: “Yes, I review my work!”

SAY: “I review my work after I finish answering all the questions. If I have time left over, I go back and review my work by checking my answers.”

ASK: “How do I review my work?”

FEEDBACK: “Excellent! I check my answers.”

SAY: “Because we don’t have time right now, I’ll pretend I answered all the questions. I’ll check number 1 and 2. When I check the answer, I read the question and my answer and I make sure I chose the best answer. I got number 1 and number 2 right, so I put a check mark next to the number.”

ASK: “What do I do when I check an answer?”

FEEDBACK: “Great! Let’s try one together now.”

“Check the time.”

“30 minutes.”

“2 minutes.”

“Easy ones first.”

“Circle the number.”

“The easy ones!”

“Review my work.”

“Check your answers.”

“Put a check mark next to the number.”

Guided Practice

Teacher passes out worksheet of sample tests.

SAY: “We are going to look at sample test 1.”

ASK: “What is our first step?”

FEEDBACK: “Very good!”

SAY: “Let’s read the directions all together. Carefully read each question. Each of the questions is a short answer question. Answer each question with a complete sentence.”

FEEDBACK: “Excellent reading everyone!”

ASK: “What is our second step?”

FEEDBACK: “Nice job!”

ASK: “What do we look at when we examine the test?”

SAMPLE ERROR CORRECTION

SAY: “One of our steps is to look for the easiest questions to answer, but that isn’t this step. Examine the test means we look at the types and number of questions.”

ASK: “What do we look at when we examine the test?”

FEEDBACK: “Correct! We look at the types and number of questions.”

ASK: “What types and number of questions are on this test?”

FEEDBACK: “Very good! We have five short-answer questions.”

SAY: “Let’s write that on the top of our test.”

ASK: “Now what is our third step?”

FEEDBACK: “Excellent!”

ASK: “How much time do we have for this test?”

FEEDBACK: “Very good!”

ASK: “If we have 15 minutes for the test, and 5 questions on the test, how many minutes do we have for each question?”

SAMPLE ERROR CORRECTION

SAY: “Remember we need to divide the number of minutes by the number of questions on the test.”

ASK: “So, what do we do on this step?”

FEEDBACK: “Correct!”

ASK: “Fifteen (for the number of minutes) divided by five (for the number of questions) equals what?”

FEEDBACK: “Yes.”

ASK: “So how many minutes can we spend on each question?”

“Read the directions.”

Students read with teacher.

“Examine the test.”

“How hard the test is.”

“The types and number of questions.”

“5 short answer”

Students write 5 short-answer on the test.

“Check the time.”

“15 minutes.”

“5 minutes.”

“Divide the number of minutes by the number of questions.”

“Three”

“Three minutes.”

FEEDBACK: “Right! We have 3 minutes per question. Let’s write that at the top of the test too.”

ASK: “What is our fourth step?”

FEEDBACK: “Good job! We will do the easy ones first.”

ASK: “How do we know which ones are the easy ones?”

FEEDBACK: “That’s right. We skim the questions and circle the numbers of the ones that will be easy.”

SAY: “Everyone take a minute to skim the questions and circle the easy ones.”

ASK: “What ones did you circle, [student name]?”

FEEDBACK: “Great!”

ASK: “Did you circle any different ones, [student name]?”

FEEDBACK: “Those work too! Because we all know different things, we all have different ones we think are easy.”

SAY: “Everyone take a minute to answer the first question only. We will pretend we answered all the questions.”

ASK: “What’s our last step?”

FEEDBACK: “Very good!”

ASK: “And how do we review our work?”

FEEDBACK: “Nice job!”

SAY: “I want you all to check your answer to number 1. Make sure you followed the directions to answer in a complete sentence.”

ASK: “What do you do if it’s right?”

FEEDBACK: “Very good! And if it’s not right, change it and check it again.”

SAY: “That was great using the DETER strategy everyone!”

Repeat script as needed with additional practice tests until students no longer need teacher assistance.

Write 3 minutes at top of test.

“Easy ones first.”

“We circle the questions.”

“1, 2, and 5.”

“I circled 1 and 3.”

“Review my work.”

“Check our answers.”

“Put a check mark next to it.”

Independent Practice

SAY: “Now you’re ready to practice using the DETER strategy on your own. Please read the directions out loud, but quietly. Remember to do all five steps and work carefully.”

Teacher walks around to monitor students while the work.

Practice the DETER strategy on practice tests.

Closing

SAY: “Today you learned how to use the DETER strategy when we take tests. It will help you do better on your tests. Tomorrow we will practice this strategy even more and try to memorize all the steps.”