Multiple Choice Strategies How to beat the AP, College Board, and NCFEs

Golden Rule of Multiple Choice “Don’t Think– find!”

These people are evil, evil people They add words to purposefully get you to second guess your answers. Look for tempt words like “best”, “most likely” and “primarily”. Remove these words from the questions stems. You can’t have a best answer. It has to be correct or incorrect. They call all wrong answers “distractors”. Keep that in mind. They are purposefully trying to distract you from the right answer. Trust your gut and don’t overthink, but find the answer.

Strategies Scan the text. Get an idea of the type of reading you should be doing. Is it an informational text, poem, or prose piece? Look at the title. Look at the end of the piece. Keep an eye out for author/copy write date. This could give you important insight and an advantage. Look at the title again.

Keep an eye out for parentheses, dashes, footnotes and italics Keep an eye out for parentheses, dashes, footnotes and italics. These are tricks! We have been taught with timed tests to over look these. These people know this and will check for it every time. Double down!!! AP Lit: be aware the test is designed to produce a bell- curve Prepare for a thee, thou, tho passage. If you know you are going to struggle with a passage like this skip it and come back.

If they give you two word answers (adjective noun game), always look at the noun first. This is the important term. This is the word that must be correct. Don’t get distracted by a fancy adjective Example: a) cynical exaggeration b) gentle sarcasm c) ironic anger d) forced glee e) feigned sympathy If it “can be” it “can’t be”. Remember all answers all tested and proven. The answer must be in the text. Don’t second guess yourself and try to say: “well this CAN also be true.”

If the ask you what a word means in line 11, make sure your read three lines above and below that line. They are expecting you to only look in the line that the give. Finally, make it easy on yourself and make each answer choice a true or false question.