Thoughts on practice test retakes?

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• 1 Like

  BinghamtonDave Alum Member ⭐ 🍌🍌

  February 2017 8716 karma

  Practice tests can be excellent resources for timing/pacing strategies. I have reused innumerable practice tests. I would set the practicality of the score you receive on a retake of a specific PT aside, it will be invariably skewed by remembering and familiarity etc: assuming the retakes are not separated by a sufficient enough time to no longer remember*

  Every single question on a redo can teach us something useful to employ on a future administration of the exam: from practice with weakening/strengthening a causal argument to recognizing a sufficient/necessary confusion.

  I hope this helps
  David
• 1 Like

  Sami Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 7Sage Tutor

  February 2017 10806 karma

  @CinnamonTea said:
  Hi all,

  What are your thoughts on Practice Test retakes? Are the scores you get utterly insignificant? Or not?

  If so, are they still worth doing? Thoughts?

  Hey CinnamonTea, : )

  So I like Practice Test retakes not because of the score, they are inflated to an extent you can remember the answer to certain questions, but more so the fact it really exposes what you have not learned but really need to. So if you still got a question wrong on a retake, I would really spend time on it and figure out what it is that you are not getting. They really are beneficial in exposing our weaknesses which is priceless because that's exactly what's needed to overcome and move on to a better and higher score.

  Let me know how you do on this : ) Good luck!
• CinnamonTea Member

  February 2017 550 karma

  Thanks!
• 3 Likes

  Cant Get Right Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 🍌 7Sage Tutor

  February 2017 27900 karma

  Hey G! So, I really love retakes for a couple of reasons.

  Unless you're reviewing your PTs with absolute effectiveness, there is still value left in them. And that value is likely to be the most elusive value in the test, so it's great to go back and try and pick that up on a second run through.

  Even better though, there's also a beautiful phenomenon that comes with vague recollection. All of the subject matter is completely arbitrary. We could substitute in any random words (as long as it's all consistent) and the logic wouldn't change. I find that the things I remember on retakes tend to only be these superficial topics. With that fuzzy familiarity, I'm better able to look past subject matter and go deeper into the underlying logical structures. This is exactly where we want our attention to be, and retakes were essential for me in training to be able to do that with fresh material.
• 1 Like

  CinnamonTea Member

  February 2017 550 karma

  Thank you very much @"Cant Get Right" !