Very Important Instructions

Although it seems like common sense, the number one tip I give my students when taking tests is: READ THE INSTRUCTIONS!  Oftentimes, exactly what you need to do is written explicitly.  This may seem like common sense, but you’d be surprised at how many students make this mistake.

For example, let’s say you have learned the past tenses in Spanish, the pretérito and imperfecto, or in French, the passé composé and imparfait.  There may be a paragraph with verbs missing.  You will have spent so much time on learning how to properly use these two verb tenses, that you will immediately think to fill in the paragraph with those tenses.  If you are rushing through the test and don’t read the instructions, you might spend a ton of time deciding which one to use, without realizing that the instructions say “Fill in the blanks with the imperfecto/imparfait tense.”  Not only will you have gotten much of the section wrong, but you will have wasted valuable time!

Keeping this simple rule in mind will help you ace those pre- or post-holiday exams!