Preparation
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Preparation |
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Percentile Performance! - What Is Effective Test Prep?
Applicants to law school, medical school or business school are required to take multiple choice standardized tests. Law school applicants must take the LSAT. Medical school applicants must take the MCAT. MBA applicants must take the GMAT. Many graduate programs require the GRE as part of the admissions process.
Your test score will play a major role in determining the success of your application. You must take steps to score well. Effective preparation is essential. The purpose of this chapter is to explain how to think about the test preparation process.
Yes! Even the test designers acknowledge that preparation improves performance.
For how long should you prepare?
There is no general answer to this question. It depends on you. It depends on your background skills, your initial level of performance and how high of a score you need. Practice testing with real exams will yield realistic score projections.
How should you go about the preparation process?
Everybody buys books. Some people take courses. What books should you buy and what courses should you take?
First, the good news. In each case, the test designer publishes books of actual questions. Since the use of actual questions is essential in the preparation process, you must acquire these books. Examples:
LSAT - Contact Law Services for copies of actual past LSATs. Visit Law Services on their web site at www.lsac.org.
Now, the bad news. In the case of LSAT ( and MCAT) the sample questions come with answers but no commentary. As a result, most people need additional books or courses to learn systematic approaches for the identification of correct answers.
"After Market" Books Containing Commentary
Definition - "After market" books are books about the tests that are not written by the test designers.
First, the good news. Some "after market" books contain excellent commentary that will teach you approaches that may be applied to actual test questions.
Now, the bad news. In most cases "after market" books don't use actual test questions. If the acquisition of sample questions, is your reason for purchasing a book, you are better off simply purchasing the actual test questions from the test designer. In other words, "after market" books should be used for commentary and not for practice questions.
A long time test prep instructor once made the point that:
"A good course will help some people a lot and a lot of people some."
There are many courses all claiming to do the same thing. Some are excellent. Some are terrible. It pays to do research when selecting a course.
How Should You Research And Select A Test Prep Course?
Recently I received the following email from a student:
"I find that these days there's so many LSAT prep courses that are being offered to students. As a student I find it hard to know which course will prove beneficial to me... I would appreciate any form of guidance you could offer."
Here is the text of my reply:
"I know that there are a lot of courses. They all promise the same things and market in the same ways. So I agree, if I were a student, I would have difficulty deciding what to choose as well.
The first point that I would make is that everybody has access to actual past exams. It is essential that you have lots of exposure to actual exams So, make sure that the course you choose uses actual exams.
The second point that I would make is that you don't take a course from a test prep company although you do give your money to them), you take a course from a specific instructor. So, you want to go "instructor shopping."
The third point is that your good instructor must be teaching systematic approaches rooted in the design and concepts of the actual test. A systematic approach will teach you how to proceed when you don't know the answer to the question.
Now let's look at your options.
First, there are the companies that try to run courses everywhere (national companies). They tend to be at the more expensive end of the market. These companies are in the position of having to hire a lot of instructors. Although, I am sure that many of these instructors are good, they have so many that you want to inquire about the experience level and ability of the specific instructor teaching the exact section in which you wish to enroll.
Second, you have local, private companies. They tend to smaller operations, with fewer instructors. The quality of instruction can be very high (especially if the company owner/operator is doing the teaching). It takes a long time to become an effective teacher of test prep courses.
Third, the continuing education divisions of local colleges and universities often run courses. But, they rarely have their own course. They simply put their name on somebody else's course and contract with the other person to deliver the course. I am not judging whether a university course is good or bad. (I have personally taught LSAT and GMAT courses for universities.) I am simply saying that it probably was not developed by the university and has no connection with it.
Fourth, short courses or long courses? In the test prep industry, (nurses range in length from the convenient weekend format to courses that lasts for months. / have authored test preparation books. / also have taught all variations of courses over the years. Every person has his/ her own learning style. In other words, the question is not: Is a long course better than a short course? The question is: Given the kind of person that I am, will a weekend format be better (which guarantees immersion) or is a longer course better (which puts a strong onus on you to do the work between the classes)?
I hope this helps you think about how to select a course. I wish you well."
John Richardson
Obviously the above principles apply to the selection of a course for any standardized test!
"Success Favours The Prepared Mind." Make sure that you prepare for your standardized test effectively and efficiently.
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