Tag Archives: test preperation

Simple Ways to Help Your Kids Prepare for a Standardized Test

No matter how you may feel about standardized tests, they are currently a part of school curriculums throughout California. While it may seem as though there’s no real way to prepare your children for taking them, CodeREV Kids actually has some tips. It all starts of course with bringing their Number 2 pencil, but there are other things they can do to increase their chances of doing well.

Teach them about the process of elimination

Any time your child doesn’t know the answer, they should simply flip it around and ask themselves what the wrong answers are. For example, if a question has four possible answers and they can see that two of them are definitely wrong, then they can choose from the remaining two and have a 50% chance of getting it right, compared to just a 25% chance if they guessed randomly.

Skip questions and go back to them

Depending on the test, there may be some questions mixed throughout the test that take longer to complete. Teach your child that if they come to one that is taking too much time, simply skip it and move on. If there’s time at the end, they can go back to them. The point is that it’s better to skip a few questions and keep moving than to get stuck on question 15 for 20 minutes and end up leaving the last 30 questions blank.

Make notes if possible

Some tests allow kids a piece of scratch paper. If the test your child is taking does allow this, then teach your kids to work out problems by writing them down and breaking them down to a smaller scale. Not only can this make it easier for children to better visualize the question, but studies have shown that it helps them concentrate and focus as well.

Teach them problem-solving and critical-thinking skills

In addition to specific test prep, you can also encourage your kids to boost their problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. In fact, at CodeREV Kids, when we ask parents to show us how coding has helped their children, they generally have numerous answers for us, but improved problem-solving skills are typically among them.

No matter what the test is, no matter how important it is, your child can learn to perform better on it. The above tips are a great way to get started as you think of ways to improve their test taking.