The Issue of Test Preparation
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tested than the student who guessed randomly (see Haladyna, 2016, for further discussion of guessing).
Support for Test Preparation From Testing Companies and Experts Despite claims from some of the commercial test-preparation companies that the major testing companies do not want students to learn strategies and tips for test taking (for example, Cheng, 2017b), officially sanctioned preparation resources are now replete with the same strategies that third-party commercial organizations recommend. For example, the College Board partnered with the online learning organization Khan Academy to create Official SAT Practice, a free online SAT preparation program (College Board, 2018a). These test-preparation resources often present general test-taking tips and subjectspecific guidance. General test-taking tips include pacing advice on the amount of time to spend on each question and section, the recommendation to skip harder questions initially to focus on answering a greater number of easier ones, and the reminder to at least guess on every question (provided there are no penalties for incorrect answers). For individual items, testpreparation programs offer advice on how to eliminate incorrect answer choices. Resources remind students that test creators often design wrong answers to be plausible. In the case of mathematics, the answers might represent the results of the most common errors teachers expect students to make; in reading, the wrong answers might contain related ideas but be too broad or too specific to properly answer the question. In the parlance of some of the commercial test-preparation companies, this is how the assessment is “designed to trick you” (Cheng, 2017a), whereas resources from the testing companies characterize these distractors as “the kind of mistakes that are frequently made by students who are rushing or trying to cut corners” (Khan Academy, n.d.). Other test-taking tips are more subject specific. For reading, test-prep resources often advise examinees to first skim the passage and look at the questions to see what elements to pay particular attention to in a full read-through. To protect against plausible distractors,
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Most test-preparation resources involve aspects of all three methods. Even those offering “beat-the-test” tricks emphasize that knowledge and ability in the area being tested are the most important factor in achieving high scores (for example, Martin, 2015). Thus, practice with the relevant academic skills and concepts forms the core of most test preparation. In addition, test-preparation programs offer detailed breakdowns of the structure and content of the assessment, including such information as descriptions of the item types test-takers will encounter and the skills they assess; the number and proportion of each item type and skill likely to appear on the test; and tips for approaching each content area and the items it contains. Beyond offering students a greater sense of familiarity with the assessment, preparation programs use these breakdowns to advise students what to prioritize in their study and practice.
