

Have you ever heard students say that they don’t do well in exams?
Do some of your students struggle to show what they know in tests?
Help is here. Cambridge International’s research team have reviewed the evidence about the strategies that help students to do well in exams and put together some handy hints to support your students to achieve success in their tests.
At Cambridge International we take great care to avoid measuring skills such as how quickly a candidate can write under timed conditions, or how good they are at making clever guesses with multiple-choice questions without really knowing the answer.
However, it is challenging to assess students’ knowledge and skills of a subject area without interference from a range of factors. On the day of a test, candidates might feel nervous and make mistakes. They might:
Such instances can leave students feeling frustrated because they couldn’t do their best. In these cases, candidates’ results are affected by weak test-taking skills.
The good news is that test-taking strategies, which are the skills and approaches that candidates can use before and during a test to improve their outcomes, can get better with practice. Preparation and practice can help learners feel confident that their test results will reflect their ability in a subject, rather than measure their test-taking skills.
Here are some top tips and tricks for pre-test preparation.
There is plenty that students can do during the test to improve their performance.
We hope these tips will support your students to do their best during tests.
If you’re interested in exploring more ways to help your learners improve their thinking and study skills, our March 2022 online Cambridge Schools Conference theme is ‘Thinking about thinking’. Workshop sessions are taking place up to 17 March and you can register for free on our website. Recordings of the workshops will also be published on our website.
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Summary Have you ever heard students say that they don’t do well in exams?. Do some of your students struggle to show what they know in tests?. Help is here. Cambridge International’s research team have reviewed the evidence about the strategies that help students to do well in exams and put together some handy hints to support your students to achieve success in their tests.
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