Quick Tip: Don’t Shy Away from Wrong Answers!
It can be disheartening to get questions wrong, especially if a PT yielded a lower-than-desired score. But too often students get caught up in disappointment and fail to use wrong answers as the gift they are. If you feel yourself spiraling, try to interrupt by saying, “Great! Now I get to learn something.” Then, get to the work of learning.
Using Wrong Answers
How do you make constructive use of wrong answers? A great place to start is a wrong answer journal. To make one, we suggest creating a table with columns that identify the correct answer, your answer, why the right answer is right, why the wrong answer is wrong, and what you could do better next time. But a wrong answer journal is just a starting point. Many students can identify what went wrong but struggle with applying it the next time they reach a new question. A good next step would be to create a drill with the goal of applying what you learned. Below are some examples of drills you can create based on lessons from your wrong answer journal:
- I need to read the Logical Reasoning question stem more carefully → do an identification drill. Without focusing on the question itself, just try to identify the question type and identify the approach you want to take on that type.
- I was looking at the wrong part of the Reading Comprehension passage → drill low-resolution summaries. Your summary should be your map through the passage, so you may want to practice writing more summaries. Try to capture the general topic and purpose of the paragraphs
- I missed an inference in a Logic Game → create a drill of a few games of the same type after foolproofing the initial game. Logic Games are extremely repetitive, and drilling the same game type will make this more obvious.
- I didn’t properly identify the conclusion in a Reading Comprehension passage or in a Logical Reasoning stimulus → do a conclusion identification drill. Go through stimuli or passages focusing only on properly identifying the conclusion. Use the core curriculum’s premise/conclusion lessons as a refresher if this is something that is happening frequently—this is an important skill.
- I chose the right answer initially, but second-guessed myself → do a confidence drill. Once you have selected an answer, move on and do not change it until blind review. Use this to practice moving through the questions more confidently; this can potentially help in both accuracy and timing.
There are many skills and strategies you will pick up on as you go, and you want to be able to cement them as you learn. Whenever you identify an area for improvement, try to practice it as soon as possible.
You can create your own drill or try out our new auto builder (beta) feature to choose one for you! Use the drilling function here.