{"id":2291,"date":"2016-04-18T22:22:36","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T05:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.waterandwastewatercourses.com\/?p=2291"},"modified":"2016-04-20T00:48:36","modified_gmt":"2016-04-20T07:48:36","slug":"7-strategies-ace-wastewater-math-test-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.waterandwastewatercourses.com\/7-strategies-ace-wastewater-math-test-day\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Strategies to Use on Test Day for Wastewater Math"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">Let&#8217;s face it. \u00a0If math is your weakness, you&#8217;re going to cringe every time you think about the wastewater operator certification exam. \u00a0It&#8217;s the last thing you want to think about, especially on the weekends. \u00a0However, it&#8217;s important to start thinking about various aspects of the test before you walk into the exam center. \u00a0In this article, we&#8217;re going to focus on test-taking strategies, which require planning ahead of time. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">There are times when no matter how hard you study, you can&#8217;t perform well on test day. \u00a0I&#8217;ve encountered a lot of operators who experienced the same thing. \u00a0Why is that? \u00a0Why don&#8217;t we perform well on test day, even though we spent the pass 2 months studying for it? \u00a0Believe it or not, it has nothing to do with your knowledge or skills. \u00a0Then what&#8217;s going on? \u00a0What&#8217;s the explanation?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">Research has shown that you need to do more than just study hard to pass your exam. \u00a0The other critical element is understanding test-taking strategies. \u00a0Most people who take tests don&#8217;t have one before they enter the test center. \u00a0Don&#8217;t let that be you. \u00a0Prior to test day, make sure you have a strategy in place so that you know how to take the test.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">So what are these strategies? \u00a0Let go through them, one by one. \u00a0Do everything you can to execute these strategies on test day.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 20px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">\u00a0<strong>Read carefully<\/strong> &#8211; Most people are in a rush to complete their exam, and don&#8217;t bother to read the test questions carefully. \u00a0They skim through the question, and miss the important keywords that lead them to the wrong answer. \u00a0Researchers have concluded that most novice test-takers fail to read the questions carefully, and miss easy questions simply because they didn&#8217;t catch the keywords. \u00a0Whatever you do, make sure to slow down and read each word carefully. \u00a0It&#8217;s a simple concept, but most novice test-takers don&#8217;t do it. \u00a0Just know that you have plenty of time to take the test, and there&#8217;s no reason to rush.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 20px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><strong>Calm down<\/strong> &#8211; For some reason, when people take tests, they have a tendency to panic. \u00a0They act as though the building is about to collapse. \u00a0Instead, learn to be at ease, and don&#8217;t let the jitters affect you in any way. \u00a0Constantly tell yourself to calm down, if you sense that your heart is racing. \u00a0Relax the muscles in your body, and breathe. \u00a0Studies have shown that people who experience excessive anxiety during the test tend to perform worse than those who are calm. \u00a0Whatever you do, make a lot of effort to ease any tension within you during the test. \u00a0It could be a critical factor in your performance on test day.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 20px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><strong>Skim through the entire test first<\/strong> &#8211; Before you begin the taking the test, flip though the entire exam booklet so that you know what to expect. \u00a0Don&#8217;t waste a lot of time doing this, but spend a moment flipping through the booklet so that you can mentally prepare yourself for all the problems.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 20px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><strong>Time management<\/strong> &#8211; If you find yourself spending a lot of time on one problem, then move on. \u00a0It&#8217;s not worth it to agonize over a single problem and leave yourself with less time to solve the remaining questions. \u00a0Before you take the test, figure out how much time you should spend per question, and stick to your time limit no matter what. \u00a0If you find yourself spending more time than what you allotted, then make an educated guess and move on. \u00a0You can always go back to it later, if you finish the exam early. \u00a0By doing this, you give yourself time to answer the easy questions, which may appear later. \u00a0Time management is so important when taking a test that it could be the difference between pass or fail. \u00a0A lot of novice test-takers make the mistake of spending too much time on the earlier questions, and make it virtually impossible finish the exam. \u00a0If this happens to you, then you&#8217;ll probably fail the test. \u00a0Keep in mind that you stand a better chance of passing the exam if you complete all the questions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 20px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><strong>Understand multiple choice strategy<\/strong> &#8211; For multiple choice questions, always cross out the choices that you know are definitely wrong. \u00a0By doing so, you can focus on the remaining choices, and slowly eliminate each one until you&#8217;re left with one choice. \u00a0If you&#8217;re struggling between two or three choices, and don&#8217;t know which one is correct, then use an educated guess. \u00a0 Whatever you do, don&#8217;t leave it blank. \u00a0If you make an educated guess, you increase your chances of getting it right. \u00a0On the other hand, if you leave it blank, then you&#8217;re definitely going to get it wrong. \u00a0Keep an eye on your watch. \u00a0If you&#8217;re about to spend more time than what you allotted for each question, then make an educated guess, and move on to the next question.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 20px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><strong>Ignore your surroundings<\/strong> &#8211;\u00a0\u00a0Ignore the people sitting next to you, especially if they&#8217;re racing to the next page. \u00a0Chances are, your neighbors are getting the questions wrong if they&#8217;re moving too fast. \u00a0Just focus on yourself. \u00a0Block out everyone near you, and pretend that you&#8217;re in the room by yourself. \u00a0Studies have shown that people who are easily distracted perform poorly on exams. \u00a0One way to prepare for the possible distraction is to study at the library during your test preparation. \u00a0The library is usually filled with distractions, so it makes a great place to train yourself to focus on the material in front of you. \u00a0Once you get in the habit on blocking out those who are sitting near you, it will become second-nature to you on exam day.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 20px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><strong>Check you work<\/strong>&#8211; When you have completed the test, make sure to check your work. \u00a0Use every minute that they give you to complete this exam, and that includes checking your work. \u00a0Don&#8217;t be in a rush to leave the test center. \u00a0And don&#8217;t schedule anything important after the exam. \u00a0Otherwise, you&#8217;ll be tempted to leave early, and lose focus during the test. \u00a0Go through each question again, and verify that you answered the questions correctly.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let&#8217;s face it. \u00a0If math is your weakness, you&#8217;re going to cringe every time you think about the wastewater operator certification exam. \u00a0It&#8217;s the last thing you want to think about, especially on the weekends. \u00a0However, it&#8217;s important to start thinking about various aspects of the test before you walk into the exam center. \u00a0In &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"ast-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.waterandwastewatercourses.com\/7-strategies-ace-wastewater-math-test-day\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">7 Strategies to Use on Test Day for Wastewater Math<\/span> Read More \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-2291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wastewater-math-practice-problems","tag-wastewater-math"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.waterandwastewatercourses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/exams2013.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waterandwastewatercourses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waterandwastewatercourses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waterandwastewatercourses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waterandwastewatercourses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waterandwastewatercourses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2291"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/www.waterandwastewatercourses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2335,"href":"https:\/\/www.waterandwastewatercourses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2291\/revisions\/2335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waterandwastewatercourses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waterandwastewatercourses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waterandwastewatercourses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waterandwastewatercourses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}