Stop Taking So Many Practice Tests!
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Let’s talk about the Do’s and Don’ts to get the most out of your practice tests.
Know WHY You Take Practice Tests
Practice tests are very useful for three things:
(1) Figuring out your current scoring level (assuming you took the test under official conditions)
(2) Practicing stamina and/or timing
(3) Analyzing your strengths and weaknesses
The third one on the list is the MOST important—that’s how we actually get better at this test!
Practice tests do not help us to improve while taking the test. If you have been training to run a marathon, you don’t learn how to get better while you’re running the marathon itself; you’re just trying to survive. ? Rather, you learn how to improve in between races while doing all kinds of training activities and analyzing your performance.
DO Take a Test at the Beginning of Your Study
Many people put off taking their first test, often because they say that they haven’t studied yet so they know they won’t do well. Believe it or not, your goal in taking your first test is NOT to “do well.” Your goal is simply to get a handle on your strengths and weaknesses. Whatever they are, you want to know that right away so that you can prioritize your study.
It’s important to familiarize yourself with the various question types before that first exam (particularly Quantitative Comparisons and the formatting for the Vocab answers) but don’t worry about learning all of the formulas, idiomatic expressions, and vocabulary. Your first test performance will tell you what you do and don’t know.
One caution in particular here: a decent percentage of the people who put off their first test do so because they’re feeling significant anxiety about taking the test. These are exactly the same people who do need to take that first test early—pushing off the practice tests will just exacerbate your anxiety.
DON’T Take a Test More than Once a Week
Have you ever had this happen? You take a practice test and you get a score that you don’t like. Maybe you even really mess things up—run out of time or finish 10 minutes early—and your score plummets. So, a couple of days later, you take another test to “prove” to yourself that the bad test was just a fluke.
If you’ve ever done that, you wasted your time and a practice test, both of which are very valuable.
Unfortunately, that bad test was not a fluke. Something happened to cause that performance. Figure out what it is and fix it before you spend another few hours taking a second test.
In fact, whether you like the score or not, whenever you take a test, don’t bother to take another until you’ve addressed whatever issues popped up during your analysis of the first test.
Most of the Time, DON’T Take a Test More Frequently than Every 3 Weeks
There are two broad modes of study: the “trying to improve” phase and the “final review” phase. Most of our study is the first phase; the final review phase kicks in for just the last couple of weeks.
During the “trying to improve” phase, it is a complete waste of time to take a test more frequently than about every 3 weeks. Really! The whole point of taking practice tests is to figure out what needs to get better. Once you do that, go get better! Until you’ve made substantial progress towards whatever issues were uncovered, taking another practice test is just going to tell you that you still have those same issues.
That even applies when you are trying to improve timing or stamina issues; there are other ways to address these issues besides taking a test. If you’re struggling with timing, set up longer sets of questions for yourself (starting in the 5-question range and building your way up). Read this Time Management article for more.
You can practice building stamina every time you study. Figure out everything that you’re going to do for the next hour or two hours (I try to set up what I think will be three hours’ worth of work, just in case I finish faster than I think; if I don’t finish, I save the rest for the next day.) Then, GO for 1 hour without stopping—no email, no smart phone, no food, nothing. If you want to do a second hour, then take a 15-minute break and GO again for a second hour without stopping.
After that second hour, do take a substantial break (at least one hour, ideally two) before you study any more that day. Making new memories is more mentally fatiguing than recalling memories (you only need to recall memories during a test), so don’t do this exercise for more than about 2 hours in a row or your study will suffer.
Once you hit the “final review” phase, you can take a test once a week for the last couple of weeks; at this point, you want to do a general review of all of the question types and content areas. You’re no longer trying to improve your score. (You may have just thought, “Well, wait a second, what if my score isn’t where I want it?” If that’s the case, then you’re not ready to take the test in a week or two. Postpone it.)
DON’T Take a Practice Test within 5 Days of the Real Test
You wouldn’t run a practice marathon a few days before a real marathon, would you? You risk tiring yourself out or (mentally) injuring yourself (by reducing your confidence) just before the real test.
If your score isn’t where you want it to be, postpone the test; you’re not going to change it substantially by taking a practice test at the last minute (or doing anything else, for that matter!).
DON’T Go Months without Taking a Test
When someone does this, the impetus is usually anxiety. You’re nervous that you won’t get the results that you want, so you avoid getting any results at all. Alternatively, maybe you think that you’ll study everything and then when you take the test, you’ll get the score that you want… but practicing without any CAT data is going to cause you to build bad habits (such as spending too much time on a question) and fail to build good ones (such as learning how and when to cut yourself off and guess).
If your last test was so long ago that you’re no longer sure what your strengths and weaknesses are under testing conditions, it’s time for another test.
Takeaways
In short, do take a test pretty early on in your study process. Then analyze the results and use that analysis to inform your study plan. When you have addressed a substantial proportion of the major issues identified via that analysis, it’s time to take another test. Most of the time, you should be able to find at least two to three weeks’ worth of issues to address after every test.
Once you’ve got your score where you want it to be, you’re going to start your final review. During this phase (which typically lasts a couple of weeks), plan to take one test two weeks before and another test one week before your real test date. In between, review everything: the question types, the content areas, and your major strategies (including timing and educated guessing strategies).
Good luck and happy studying! ?
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Stacey Koprince is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Montreal, Canada and Los Angeles, California. Stacey has been teaching the GMAT, GRE, and LSAT for more than 15 years and is one of the most well-known instructors in the industry. Stacey loves to teach and is absolutely fascinated by standardized tests.