Hi Sudipt23,
Congratulations on all of your hard work building content knowledge so far! Here are some tips for your upcoming test.
1. Anxiety can be debilitating and hurt your score - or it can be a helpful tool to boost your score, if you view it in the right frame of mind. The feeling of nervous excitement that you get before a test, an important sporting event, or a major life event serves to focus your attention. You get that feeling of hyper-awareness and energy. Too much of that feeling, though, can cause panic, which impedes your ability to to focus. So, to channel that good excitement rather than creating counterproductive panic, here are a few things you should do:
- Plan to take the test twice. You're taking it in late November, but tell yourself that you'll take it again in late December (that's plenty of time for most 2nd round deadlines), no matter what the outcome this time. Unless you get a 750+, there's always the opportunity to improve a second time. That takes a lot of pressure off of you to get a perfect score the first time.
- Be ok with getting things wrong! The test is designed to feel hard for everyone, which means that everyone (even the experts!) get questions wrong. When you get to a question and think "oh no! I have no idea how to solve this," just tell yourself, "that's ok, that's supposed to happen on certain questions." Guess and move on without feeling bad about it.
- Remind yourself of the enormous amount that you know before going into the test. Review all of the rules to reinforce the feeling of "yeah, I know this stuff," but also remind yourself of all of your successes on the really hard problems. You know more than you think!
2. As for practice tests, don't go overboard! You shouldn't take more than 2 in a 10 day period. Practice tests serve to tell you how much you've learned, but they don't really create the learning themselves. Take one test, then review it in depth (you should spend more time reviewing that you spend taking the test in the first place). Spend some time thinking about how you could have improved your technique on each question. Then spend some time digging into any topics that need work.
Be especially aware of your time management. If you've only taken 2 CATs so far, you probably haven't exactly mastered a perfect timing balance. Make sure you're tracking your timing throughout each CAT.
Most importantly - don't burn yourself out in these last 10 days. Being well-rested and relaxed will do more to improve your score than getting extra hours of studying in but sacrificing sleep.
Good luck!
Ceilidh Erickson
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education
