How do we beat the clock during a test, overcome test anxiety, and get exceptional grades? The answer lies in doing less work overall. Doing work more efficiently.

How to Build Your Critical Thinking Skills

Steps to Build Your Critical Thinking Skills:

*Critical thinking is the ability to determine the best solution for a problem and apply that information.

a) Do all required assigned work that count toward your grades: homework, projects, essays, presentations, etc. Your syllabus will tell you which works are required and which required works count for a grade.

b) Each weekday, take 30 timed practice questions in total and review them.  Using a question bank from test preparation books recommended by your professors, these questions will cover the content of what you are planning to study each weekday.  Student peers will also know other question banks you can use if you want to try those test banks.

Review the questions you got wrong.  Understand the rationales for questions marked wrong or unsure.  Reinforce what you learned by writing down summaries of the rationales for the questions you got wrong. This creates your notes. See this article to determine other ways you can reinforce what you learned by learning style. 

b) You make time each weekend to study.  You dedicate three hours a week on a Sunday to review the notes you made during the week in class and from reviewing questions.  Then, you take timed 10 practice questions.  Review as above. Over time, this builds your ability to tell what is the best choice in a given scenario tested in your graduate or professional program.