Test taking better for learning than studying. Agree or disagree?

Test taking better for learning than studying. Agree or disagree?.

I totally agree.

My Mom is a clinical psychologist (graduated with a degree in B.S. Psychology) who has spent most of her career in government-owned corporations.� Her first stint at being one landed her a job in the Human Resource Department screening applicants for various positions.� I figured that this exposure gathered her piles of test materials that I found at home when I was little.�

The little nosey me explored these test materials and pondered how to go about them.� Gladly, my Mom allowed me to take the tests with no pressure of time to most of them.� I took abstract reasoning tests that had a lot of shapes and figures drawn.� I also took those with computation questions, some of them with the dreaded fractions.� I can’t recall now what other kinds there were but there were a lot.� But what I learned now is that all of them tried my analytical skills more than any particular subject.

And I think that is the best part that I learned from all those tests.  I am more confident in test-taking – whether it was academic, corporate, or even the board.  Techniques in taking tests are best discovered while not under pressure.  Familiarity in the different  forms of questions and even in the patterns of choices to pick out the best answers from is the most important skill I adapted.  This technique complements other important skills such as speed reading, vocabulary building, and memory enhancing.

I must say I am a diligent student.  Even after I passed the board, I continue to read and explore more knowledge in a lot of other ways regarding my profession.  And not only that, I am interested in anything that says HOW TO and WHAT IS on just about anything.  I am also an avid fan of the dictionary and the encyclopedia.  These classics have helped a lot in building my vocabulary.  To help retain new or difficult concepts, I rewrite them and illustrate them in figures that I can easily associate them with.

Each one of us has our own study habits.  But most of us do not realize that taking tests – whether those that we fail or we succeed in – give us an edge towards learning concepts better.  Test questions are formulated to stimulate our critical thinking.  And critical thinking resurfaces foundations of complex ideas that we have learned.

I may not always have topped tests that I have taken since I was little.  But the discipline that I have adapted in terms of enriching my knowledge have strengthened the value of my character.  And this is the same way that I motivate my children to learn and to live by.