The Adult Student's Guide to Survival and Success 6th Edition cover

Frequently Asked Questions: Studying, Papers and Tests

We get a lot of inquiries at Adult Student.com! Many deal with similar topics, so we've decided to post some of our most commonly asked questions. Use our form to submit your question.

FAQs at Adult Student.com:

Please see our Study Skills links and article on Bloom's Taxonomy for more information

Open All | Close All

My professor uses only true/false or multiple choice tests. I'm an over 40 student who tests very poorly on these kinds of tests - any good advice for better memorization skills or just better testing in general? -- Kelly A., Pennsylvania

I know your pain.... T/F are my toughest questions, too. I seem to read more into them that I often should.

I had better success when a professor would let me "make it true" or "make it false" by adding or crossing off words or phrases. Not all profs will let you do this, but some might. Ask.

In general, for T/F, if part is false, the whole thing is false. For multiple choice tests, try to eliminate the incorrect answers first. Our book, The Adult Student's Guide to Survival and Success devotes chapter 7 just to test taking.

A quick guideline is to answer the easiest ones first and skip harder ones. Sometimes a question later in the test will clue you into what a harder answer might be. We have additional suggestions about creating practice tests as part of your studying in our book. This has proved to be a very successful activity for test preparation.

FAQs compiled by
Kristin Pintarich
Editor-in-Chief, Practical Psychology Press, Inc.