Not as efficient as we think

 

Have you ever heard of these techniques? 

• Elaborative interrogation

• Self-explanation

• Summarizing

• Highlighting/underlining

• Keyword mnemonics

• Imagery

• Re-reading

• Practice testing

• Distributed practice

• Interleaved practice

According to a recent study published on BBC, most of the techniques students use to prepare for tests are not effective – so when we think we are getting an upper hand on our studies we are actually wasting a lot of time that could be spent practicing a hobby or broadening our cultural horizons,

The question is, like anything in life, we have to find what works for us, even if that something just has a psychological effect.

So which of these techniques do you use? What other techniques do you normally resort to and how effective are they?

Which of these techniques would be useful to prepare for the TOEFL iBT?

Post your answers in the comments box.  

Tests and stress

 

When we think about tests, here are some words that come to mind:

cheating

studying

preparation

nervousness

anxiety

midterm

final

makeup

supplementary

book

grades

scores

certification

goals, objectives

multiple choice x discursive

under pressure

One way of doing well in tests is knowing how you react in test-like situations.

What kind of student are you in test situations?

I shake like a leaf  = I am visibly nervous = I tremble = I get the jitters

I freak out

I get goosebumps

I get butterflies in my stomach

I get white as a sheet (of paper)

I get cold sweat

I get cold feet

My mind goes blank = I draw a blank

Here is some more language used to talk about tests and stressful situations in general. Match the sentence halves 1-12 in bold with the other halves in the bullet points in italics below.

1. I get nervous about …
2. I get nervous when …
3. My level of nervousness depends on …
4. I deal well with  …
5. I find it hard …
6. The more nervous I get, the more I …
7. It’s easy for me …
8. Ideally, …
9. In the best case scenario, 
10. Usually when I do/take/sit a test, I …
11. I feel grumpy …
12. If I don’t know the answer to a question, I try not to … 

• the kind of test I have to do
• beat about the bush
• waste a lot of time
• to be concentrated/focused in tests
• unexpected/adverse circumstances　
• make sure and get a lot of rest the night before
• taking tests
• if I know I could have done much better at a test
• I keep my cool in tests
• to get straight to the point
• tests don’t bother me
• I have to give or deliver a presentation
• stressful situations

Now tell us:

If you could choose the way you could be tested, what would it be and why?

 

A thing or two about writing

Getting straight to the point: 

• Clarity
• Objectivity
• Naturalness 
• Comprehensibility
• informativeness
• Simplicity
• Effectiveness

Did you guess the WORD? 

 

You be the judge – Scoring the Independent Writing task

You be the judge!

You’re going to look at some model answers to an Independent Writing task and give a score for each.

First look at the rubric Scoring the Independent Writing Task on page 677 of the pdf version and on page 650 of the printed version. It says what is expected of a text to get a maximum score of 5 or a low score of 1.

Next, look at the exercise “Scoring the Response” on page 681 of the pdf version of the book and on page 645 of the printed version. Read Responses 1, 2 and 3.

What score, from 0 to 5, would you give for each response and why?