Introduction:
You’ve failed. I don’t know if it’s the second time or the seventh, but you’re likely disappointed and probably stumped. You studied your little heart out, did your breathing exercises, got plenty of rest, and you ate plenty brain food the day before, but none of that matters. You still haven’t passed.
Life being what it is and requirements being what they are, taking and passing tests have become societal norms, and whether you agree or don’t on the efficacy of testing, the tests are here, and if you’re a member of the population that often struggles with testing — or you’ve finally run into a test that you just can’t crack —there may be something here for you.
The list isn’t exhaustive; it references only four reasons you may have trouble passing a particular test or tests, in general, so don’t tear out your hair if you don’t find a reason that applies to your specific situation. Maybe you’re one of the 40% of U.S. seniors who scored below basic on the NAEP* in 2019, or the nearly 34% of folks aspiring to teach in California who didn’t pass the state’s suite of basic skills tests, CBEST*, during an initial attempt. Perhaps you struggle to figure out how to pass final exams or how to pass SAT*, HSPT*, ACT*, or GRE*. Either way, the following list of considerations may help you figure out why.
When Studying, You Rely Too Heavily on Taking Practice Tests
You keep thinking that if you take a bunch of practice exams, you’ll do better on the test. So, what do you do? You take a whole bunch of ’em. Question: what happens if the questions you answer correctly on the practice exams are formatted the same, on the official test, but are just worded differently? Even worse, what happens if the questions you answer correctly on the practice tests are formatted differently on the official test?
This happens often. Like most of us, you think you’re doing the right thing, and you deserve credit for trying to prepare yourself. Besides, what you’re doing seems reasonable. If you were engaged in a different activity, you’d practice for that, too. Right?
For a few minutes, I want you to pretend you’re a sprinter slated to run the 100-yard dash at a track meet. To prepare, you’d practice running 100 yards every chance you get. There’s much more to winning a race than running, but if you can’t physically perform — if you can’t run — you have zero chance of winning the race, so focusing on the physical aspect of the activity makes sense. Unfortunately, you’re extrapolating this training method to your test prep regimen; you reap funky results because the dominant skill set used for winning running contests (which are tests, if you will) isn’t the dominant skill set needed for passing conventional tests.
Taking a slew of practice tests fools you into feeling as if you’re doin’ something productive because of the physical engagement and mental exhaustion that come on the heels of completing each practice test. Even worse, it encourages memorization of answers to sets of specific questions (which won’t be helpful if the questions on the real test are worded or otherwise formatted differently).
Anyway, focusing on the physical aspect of testing (i.e., taking a heap practice tests as your main method of studying) won’t help you if you don’t know the material. Learning the material should be your focus.
Let’s get busy getting you over your academic, professional, or personal hurdles.
You Haven’t Figured Out How to Beat Your Anxiety
You’ve probably already settled on and tried a course of action for handling the anxiety you may feel in test-taking situations. If it doesn’t work, there’s a chance you’ve chosen a remedy that doesn’t suit you. Because you don’t realize you have other options, you might think there’s no way for you to manage your anxiety during testing sessions, leaving you feeling helpless and hopeless.
Lucky for you, there’s hope; you can be helped. Consider this: it’s possible that you can’t get a handle on your test-related anxiety because the remedy you’ve chosen (or one someone else has chosen for you) may be defective because that particular remedy may have nothing to do with the cause of your anxiety.
Example — a popular suggestion for handling anxiety is meditating. I’m all for meditation, but if you don’t have a solid understanding of the test-related material, no amount of meditation will help you pass the test. Somewhere inside, you know this, and the notion that you don’t know the material eats up your nervous system. Meditating won’t help you learn the material, so don’t expect it to remedy your anxiety.
Do you know what you can expect to remedy your anxiety (in this case, anyway)? Learning the material.
You’ve Been Fed a False Sense of Competence
Photo Credit: @cookingforbae. Twitter. 12 February 2017. https://twitter.com/cookingforbae/status/830896772016959489/photo/1
Picture it: you’ve spent $300 on groceries and four hours preparing a dish based on a 5-star recipe you’re sure your friends and family will love.
Your 15 guests arrive. They dine. They smile. A few of them compliment you on the taste of the food. Some compliment your adventurous spirit. Others smile and thank you for inviting them.
There are a few problems: the food looks a mess and tastes watery. The bites that aren’t completely bland have weird flavor profiles— and not weird in a good way. Nobody tells you this. You have no idea. Your little masterpiece does look a little off to you, but it must be okay, and you must be overreacting — nobody negatively criticized your dish. So, what do you do? You recreate that monstrosity and trot it out at several parties, where you notice this culinary delight is missing from some folks’ plates. The revelers who do take a bit of the item leave almost all of it untouched. You chalk it up to them being full from everything else they’ve eaten, especially since there are folks who, again, compliment you and thank you for bringing the dish.
You’re so pleased with yourself that you decide to start selling the creation as a side hustle. Then it happens: you squander a few months and a couple thousand dollars before realizing that your version of this creation is not one that people want to buy because it’s not a tasty one.
After bruising your checking account and ego, a friend finally admits to disliking your cooking. The friend’s reason for waiting so long to be honest: she didn’t want to hurt your feelings or come off as a hater. Do you see where this is going?
You were given an inflated sense of competence, which encouraged negative behavior and prevented you from learning from your mistakes and making corrections. Unfortunately, the same happens in academia, where the issue can be a bit more complicated, but the basic premise exists: to avoid making waves, folks are given the impression they know more than they really do in a specific arena, which stunts their will to improve.
To be fair, though, often times, even if we are aware of our deficiencies, we’ve come to expect bail outs of sorts. (Cue the extra credit packet your parents pressured your teacher to give you or list of chores to complete for your instructor or boss.)
If this has been your experience, I’m sorry. The people in your life have been dishonest with you, and now you’re encountering the one test, series of tests, or teacher that’s not going to let you off the hook. To pass, you’ll have to satisfy specific standards — with zero regard for how people feel about you.
Being misled so often and for so long stinks, but you’ll have to find a way to rise to the occasion. Chances are that you know this. You probably know, too, that the best way for you to succeed is to dive deeply into learning the material.
You Don’t Try as Hard as You Can Because You Don’t Believe You Have the Power to Do Well
Despite the clarity you try to squeeze from morning meditations or the self-love mantras you’ve taped to your bathroom mirror, in your heart of hearts, you don’t believe you’re able to crush tests (or a particular test).
OR
As mentioned in the section about anxiety, you don’t believe you can pass because you know you don’t know nearly as much as you should. You’ve probably been getting by on your personality, looks, or regularly completion of assignments that don’t challenge you to do much long-haul learning.
OR
Maybe you’re confident in your intelligence — and not just superficially so — but you’ve heard too many horror stories about a particular test to believe any human capable of passing it.
It may be, too (or instead), that you feel buried beneath all the cards stacked against you. With all the biases in the world — and there are many — you may have deep-seated negative beliefs about your test-taking abilities because of what history has taught us about how some people’s ability to perform well on tests — standardized or otherwise — may be curbed by circumstances related to substandard income levels, substandard geographic locations, and gender. While these factors may play a role in the way you see yourself or the way you perceive the relevance of certain bits of information to your existence, know that you are able to access information and make it work for you so that it becomes relevant to you.
Sacrificing work breaks or time with friends and family to get ahold of and digest the information may become your norm, and it may seem unfair, but it’ll be worth it when you pass your test, earn a scholarship, or snag a preferred school placement, job, promotion, raise, or other life-changing reward. Plus, the joy that accompanies accomplishing a seemingly insurmountable goal and learning something new along the way can’t be beat.
The Wrap Up
f.Use this information to your advantage, especially if you’re trying to figure out how to pass the SAT, ACT, CBEST, HSPT, or Praxis, and are trying to get an early start. If you’re trying to figure out how to pass your final exams, you may still have time to get yourself together and develop a solid plan. As I write this, there are only 14 days remaining in the average school semester.
You’re probably annoyed that this list isn’t exhaustive or that I haven’t provided concrete solutions to your problems. Encouraging you to learn the material isn’t as effective as sharing detailed examples of how to learn material, but at least I delivered what was promised in the title: 4 reasons you still haven’t passed a test. Next time, maybe I’ll share more. Right now, though, I ain’t got time for that. I have to go help someone prep to pass his test.
NAEP — National Association of Educational Policy
CBEST — California Basic Education Skills Test; SAT — Scholastic Aptitude Test; ACT — American College Testing Program; HSPT — High School Placement Test; GRE — General Record Examination
Works Cited
h.U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2019 Mathematics Assessment. https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/mathematics/2019/g12/
Educator Preparation Committee. Annual Report on Passing Rates of Commission-Approved Examinations from 2015–16 to 2019–20. California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. p. EPC 4J-9. 6 June 2021.
https://www.ctc.ca.gov/docs/default-source/commission/agendas/2021-06/2021-06-4j.pdf?sfvrsn=3eca2ab1_2