3/25/2022
Pharmacy school is filled with countless tests and quizzes, and most of them happen to be multiple choice. When you are taking 2-3 of these assessments a week, you must get pretty good at strategizing for success if you want to keep your grades up! So, after my 4 years, here are my top 14 tips for success on multiple choice exams (in no particular order). *Disclaimer: I mention ExamSoft several times throughout because that is the software we use at my school to take exams! The pictures from the ExamSoft system are from student tutorial pages on the software available online.*
- If the test includes math problems, it might be best to do all those problems last (or first, depending on how quickly you can do them or what kind of math it is). It helps to keep your mind in math mode instead of bouncing back and forth from cases and drug knowledge to numbers and plugging things into a calculator.
2. Flag questions and come back. You should know quickly if you have absolutely no idea what the answer is. Make your best guess and move on, don’t waste 10 minutes pondering it. Examsoft will let you flag these so you can come back and spend more time thinking through things after you finish the rest of the test.
3. Use your test wisely. Sometimes other questions reference things that will help jog your memory or confirm your answer for a previous question. Write the question numbers down if you want to go back and compare information.
4. Use your scratch paper! Write things out immediately before you even answer the first question if there’s a big important pathway, list of drugs you need to have memorized, etc. This helps you can keep things straight and you can reference it throughout the test. I also make a note of things that I’m unsure about, partly so I can remember to look them up afterwards and confirm if my thinking was correct or not. Also, keep it organized. If you’re making notes about specific questions, be sure to write down the question number, don’t just scrawl things everywhere, you’ll confuse yourself and won’t be able to go back and check your work easily.
5. Select all that apply questions (the dreaded part of every test) should be treated like a true false statement. Read the question and treat each answer choice as an individual option to determine if you should select or not.
6. For questions with the option of “all of the above” or “none of the above” answer choices, if at least two of them are right, then the answer is “all of the above”. None of the above is less often correct and can only be used if you truly confirm every option is incorrect.
7. Don’t skim over the words “NOT”, “except” or “always”! These are easy mistakes to make but completely change the question and answer. Double negatives are also tricky, be sure you’re reading carefully so you don’t miss these.
8. Mark answers out. Eliminating wrong answers can be just as helpful as knowing the right answers. Examsoft will let you do this, making a line through the choice so you aren’t distracted by it.
9. The highlight function on examsoft can be very helpful for very long paragraph questions, such as cases that include important details like drug names, doses, lab values, etc. By highlighting you can help keep yourself focused on the important parts and less likely to be distracted or overwhelmed by the huge number of words on the screen. If you don’t like or have access to the highlight function, write down the important pieces of information on your scratch paper to keep things straight.
10. Your first gut answer is usually correct, don’t go back changing answers and second guessing, you’ll be disappointed when you see that what you originally put was correct, but you ended up missing the question.
11. Read all the answer options! If you just read choice A and think that sounds good, fine. But it may not be the BEST option available.
12. Pro tip: the longest answer choice is more likely to be correct. More details and qualifiers usually indicate that’s the right answer!
13. Come up with what you think the answer is in your head after reading the question but before looking at the answer choices. This will help you avoid getting confused or distracted when seeing all the options and increase your confidence when you see your answer as a choice!
14. Time management is HUGE! Pace yourself throughout the exam, check the clock and make sure you are making satisfactory progress. If you near the last couple minutes of the exam and still have questions left, at least answer every question even if you just click something random without reading.
My personal time management strategy:
- Go through the whole test once, flagging questions you are unsure about (and saving the math for last).
- Go back through it all one more time to re-read questions and make sure you didn’t make a stupid mistake or accidentally click the wrong answer. Rework the math questions during this go round.
- Go through your flagged questions only once more.
- Turn it in. Going through it 4, 5, 6 times is redundant and just going to make you freak out and start changing answers!
