Speaker 1: Hey everyone, Miss Lasseter here. And in this video I'm going to show you some of my favorite multiple choice test-taking hacks. Now these are strategies for when you're taking a multiple choice test and you have no idea what the answer is. Now these are things that I know as a teacher because I do these and they're good hints as to how to figure out my tests but I know that they apply to lots of other teachers and tests as well and statisticians have shown this by doing lots of studies on multiple choice tests like the ACT's, the SAT's over years. This is not a video about test-taking strategies per se. I have a whole other video on that about how to strategize making educated guesses and doing your best on multiple choice tests with the balance of content and test-taking skills. This video is for when you get to that point in your test-taking and you come across a question you have absolutely no idea but I'm going to show you how to answer correctly on a multiple choice test without knowing the answer. Again I'm a teacher obviously I would love for you to learn the content because you want to know it not necessarily because you want to get the best grade on the test but I do know that test stress a lot of students out so hopefully you'll find this video helpful for those moments when you get to a multiple choice test and you are totally stuck. So stay tuned for some of my favorite strategies and make sure you let me know in the comments if any of these have worked for you. First multiple choice hack is that very commonly and not just for my classes but all multiple choice tests it is more likely if you have a list of answer choices and one of them is all of the above or none of the above that that is the right answer. Again statisticians have analyzed lots and lots of different tests and figured out that this one is more commonly right than wrong so if you see an answer choice and you have no idea what the question is asking go with all of the above. Next up is something to avoid if you see outliers meaning numbers that are really really big really really small or just have nothing to do with the rest of the group of answer choices those are probably answer choices to avoid when you are totally guessing. So stick to the numbers that are closer together if you have a list of numbers as your multiple choice answer choices. The next hack is to look at repeat numbers. This is something I do on my test sometimes. Now if you have a list of answer choices that are numbers, numbers that are either close together or numbers that are very similar could be an indicator that one of those numbers is the correct answer. So sometimes teachers if they have a math problem will actually work out the math problem and introduce mistakes as they're working it out as if they knew what the students would do incorrectly on the exam and then make those one of the incorrect multiple choice answers. But sometimes teachers can get lazy and they'll just put a number close to the actual answer as an incorrect answer choice. I confess I do do this sometimes so if you see two answer choices that are numerically pretty close together it might give you a hint that one of them is the correct answer. And remember if you can eliminate at least two answer choices if there are four options on a multiple choice question you have a 50-50 shot of getting it right. Test taking hack number three. I tell my students this all the time but teachers like to put distractor answers in their multiple choice tests and sometimes these are answers or words or things you've never heard of before. So avoid those answer choices. Any answer choices with words, vocabulary, a concept you've never heard of or not covered in your unit in class, don't choose that answer. It's a way to distract from the correct answer so you can avoid those things you've never heard of. My next test taking hack is to pay attention to the grammatical phrasing of the question and the answer choices. The one that is correct is more likely to be a matching answer choice. So make sure A's and and's agree with your answer choices. Make sure there's agreement with plural and singular phrases. All of these things can actually give you a hint towards the correct answer. Another thing that might give you a hint that the answer is correct is that if it's long or longer than the other answer choices it's the correct one. Teachers are more likely to spend more time on the correct answer or generate the correct answer first before they generate the other questions. So the right answer might be the longest. This is not always the case but you could be guessing right if you guess the longest answer and you have no idea what the actual answer choice is. Another thing to eliminate when you're going through your multiple choice test is phrases like always and never in the answer choices. If an answer choice has always or never these are absolutes and most likely are not going to be your correct answer choice. This is not always the case but you can make sure if you're totally guessing just go ahead and eliminate the always and never choices. Make sure you go beyond the old adage that C is the correct answer most of the time. Now sometimes especially with online or digital multiple choice test the answers are totally randomized so you don't really have an opportunity to compare the question that comes above and below your question that you're stuck on. But if you do have a test where the questions are in a specific order it is less likely you're going to see two repeat questions with the same letter choice in a row. What that means if that you know the correct answer to the question above is A it's probably not going to be A for the question below. This is not always the case and sometimes teachers are tricky and will try to trip you up. I have been known to have the same answer choice several times in a row on a test but if you're totally lost your best bet is to go with an answer choice that is not the same as the one above or below the question that you're on. And my last test taking hack and this is more of a strategy that you could lump in with your strategies for multiple choice test taking is to scan the test for questions that might provide information to the question that you're on if you're totally stuck. Sometimes answers are hidden within other questions or other answer choices on a test so if you have the extra time read the test carefully go back check your work and do the best that you can. Alright I hope these test taking hacks will help you one day when you get stuck on a question or you run out of time on a multiple choice test but I also have another video on multiple choice test taking tips and strategies that's a little bit more geared to you making educated guesses rather than just random test hacking and guessing. So please let me know if any of these have worked for you and if you like this video please go ahead and subscribe. I'll see you later.