Lesson: Chapter - 21

Practice Tests Are Your Best Friends

Through Molly Bloom, we’ve shown you why studying practice tests is an extremely powerful strategy. Now we’re going to backtrack and show you exactly how to deploy that strategy.

Controlling Your Environment

Although a practice test is practice, and no one but you ever needs to see your scores, you should do everything in your power to make the practice test feel like the real Subject Test Physics. The closer your practice resembles the real thing, the more helpful it will be. When taking a practice test, follow these rules:

• Time Yourself: Don’t give yourself any extra time. Be stricter with yourself than the meanest proctor you can think of. Don’t give yourself time off for bathroom breaks. If you have to go to the bathroom, let the clock keep running; that’s what will happen on the real Subject Test Physics.
• Take the Test in a Single Sitting: Training yourself to endure an hour of test taking is part of your preparation.
• Eliminate Distractions: Don’t take the practice test in a room with lots of people walking through it. Go to a library, your bedroom, a well-lit closet—anywhere quiet.

Following these guidelines will help you to concentrate better and speed you toward your target score. However, don’t be discouraged if you find these rules too strict; you can always bend a few. Preparing for Subject Test Physics should not be torturous! Do whatever you have to do in order to make sure your studying is interesting and painless enough that you will actually do it.

Ultimately, if you can follow all of the above rules to the letter, you will probably be better off. But if following those rules makes studying excruciating, find little ways to bend them that won’t interfere too much with your concentration.

Practice Test Strategy

You should take the test as if it were the real deal: go for the highest score you can get. This doesn’t mean you should be more daring than you would be on the actual test, guessing blindly even when you can’t eliminate an answer. It doesn’t mean that you should speed through the test carelessly. The more closely your attitude and strategies during the practice test reflect those you’ll employ during the actual test, the more accurately the practice test will reflect your strengths and weaknesses: you’ll learn what areas you should study and how to pace yourself during the test.

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