What Exactly is Test Strategy?

Ever since I started teaching test prep many years ago, I often hear parents asking me this question: “Are you teaching any test strategy in your lessons?”  Usually, I would answer with something like this: We will do practice on the questions and find out the student’s weaknesses and continue to do more practice to overcome these weaknesses until they can solve the problems easily.  For most parents, this kind of answer seems to suffice.  But as I gained more experience in training students and going through practice tests drills with them, I began to understand exactly what a test strategy is.  But first, I will highlight what a test strategy is not.

A test strategy is not a teaching method.  Doing practices on questions and trying to find out the student’s weaknesses and then doing more practice to overcome these weakness is an approach to teaching or simply, a teaching method.  Most trainers are able to do that with differing levels of ability.  Analysis of weaknesses is another topic that deserves more clarifications and understanding and I am not going into details over here.  Test strategy is a plan (a series of steps) to achieve a strategic goal.  Of course, for SAT, the strategic goal is to get the highest and balanced scores possible for the student.  But what is the plan (or a series of steps) to do that?

A test strategy is not how to solve a particular type of problem.  There are many different types of problems in SAT and the approach to solve each problem is a technique that we can use to solve each type of problem.  Of course, we should teach them the easiest, the most effective and efficient technique to solve the problem, but this is still not a strategy.  In military terms, this is tactics, not strategy.  Often times, SAT tutors only teach their students how to solve the problems, but not how to approach the test.  A test is a combination of problems presented in a certain sequence and limited by the time allowed.  So, a strategy has to address these issues of problem types and time constraints.

Once I heard a test prep tutor said something like this to her student, “If you cannot finish it on time, then you have to work faster.”  Working faster is NOT a test strategy.  Everybody needs to work faster, but how to work faster is the critical point here.  Just telling people to work faster is not strategy.  The Nike logo says “Just Do It.”  This is at best an inspiration but not a strategy.  We need to know how to do it faster.  If doing it faster is not humanly possible, then what do we do?  I have come across standardized tests that are almost humanly impossible to finish on time.  For students in these tests, what can we do to help students?

In my view, a test strategy is HOW to approach the test.  What are the various steps that we should take in order to finish the test.  Strategy is about prioritizing the resources that we have to achieve the strategic goal of maximizing our scores.  We know that our resources are limited: attention span and time limit.  How can we use these limited resources effectively?  That is strategy.  If resources are unlimited, that is, if you have unlimited attention span and unlimited time, then we don’t need test strategy.  We, as Nike said, just do it. But in the real world of tests, resources are limited.  In military terms, the strategy is to win the war without necessarily winning all the battles.  Winning every battle is perfect, but it may be a huge strain on our resources that we end up losing the war.

That’s why in the Practice Test Drills, I focus on teaching test strategies in addition to honing the skills that the student has acquired.  In SAT Reading and Writing modules, the test strategy is to go through the test in two passes.  The first pass tackles certain types of questions first and the second pass tackles the rest.  Along the way, the student learns how to pace themselves correctly so that they allocate the right amount of time to each pass.  In Math, it is similar but slightly different.  We do it in 3 passes.  The first pass is to do all the easy questions.  The second pass involves checking and confirming our answers to these questions.  And then the third pass is to work on the harder question with the remaining time.  It’s only when you have the right strategy can you achieve the highest possible score.

The development of my test strategy doesn’t come overnight.  It takes years of experimentation, measurements, analysis, and insights into the design and structure of the test.  This is something that I do not expect the students to do by themselves.  They need guidance and practice on test strategies, and that’s where I can help.

AI Summary by Copilot:

A test strategy is an overall plan for how to approach a test, focusing on how to use limited resources like time and attention to maximize scores. It’s different from just practicing questions or learning problem-solving techniques. Effective test strategies involve steps like prioritizing questions and managing time, rather than just working faster or solving every problem.