Recent special education legislation such as the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) emphasizes the placement of students with mild disabilities in the general education classroom. Therefore, students with learning, behavior, and communicating disorders will typically be learning science from classroom teachers rather than in separate special…

Reviews materials in the ERIC data base that can be used to teach students test-wiseness skills such as cue- using strategies, time using, error avoidance, guessing, deductive reasoning, answering analogies, and answering multiple choice questions. (MKM)

Offers seven steps for students to follow when writing an examination answer. (HOD)

Presents expert advice on how to write effective tests and offers suggestions for teaching children how to take tests. (JMB)

The FORCE strategy was designed as a simple, step-by-step procedure to assist learning-disabled adolescents in preparing for tests. The steps are find out, organize, review, concentrate, and examine early (pretest). The article discusses application of the strategy and issues relating to generalization of the strategy to other subject areas. (JDD)

This investigation sought to determine if supplementing lectures using Microsoft PowerPoint slides with handouts of the slides enhanced test-taking performance in an undergraduate Human Development course. In the first study, one section of the course (N = 50) was given handouts for one exam and a final; the other (N = 50) received handouts only…

Teachers can do something to help ensure students will do better on tests. They can actively teach test-taking skills so pupils will be better armed in the battle to acquire knowledge. The author challenges teachers to use the suggestions provided in this article in the classroom, and to share them with their students. Test-taking strategies will…

The majority of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students are not attaining the ACT scores they are aiming for, which they need to qualify for scholarships and college acceptance. This report looks at the reasons behind students' low performance and what matters for doing well on this test. CPS students are highly motivated to do well on the ACT, and…

Several experiments were carried out to determine whether learning disabled (LD) and behaviorally disordered (BD) students exhibit deficiencies in appropriate test-taking strategies and, if so, whether these strategies could be successfully trained. Preliminary investigations indicated that mildly handicapped students do exhibit deficiencies in…

Suggests techniques for teaching students to comprehend test questions in a manner that requires them to think about both what is in the question and what could be in the passage. (HOD)

Teaching students test wiseness can have a number of positive results, including improving the validity of the tests themselves and improving the scores of minority students on tests. (AEA)

This study used a seven-stage instructional methodology to successfully teach a comprehensive test-taking strategy to six secondary learning-disabled students. Evidence of maintenance and generalization is reported. In the second article, answers are presented to questions about strategy training in general and this study in particular. (Author/DB)

What can teachers do in their classrooms to help students prepare for a high-stakes, standardized, multiple-choice reading test without sacrificing what they know to be best practice? Decreasing class sizes or other solutions that require substantial changes in school finance are not usually realistic options. This article outlines five…

Describes a test-taking course designed to prepare seventh-grade students for the SAT.

This study was designed to determine if non-science majors who have a 1-hour teacher-structured review before each major test score higher than students who review by self-preparation. Four laboratory science classes in a junior college in Mississippi were randomly selected, with two classes assigned as the control group and two classes as the…