Time to Practice! Your Favorite... CAHSEE Test-Taking Strategies! 35 (and 34) Days to the CAHSEE!!! January 17-18, 2012

Knowing Our Strategies Will Help Us Pass! What are our new test taking strategies? main ideadetails Read for the main idea, not the details. Six Step Strategy  Skim the title and text, then predict.  Read the first and last paragraphs (or sentences), then predict.  Read the questions (not the answers), then predict. Two-Pass Method detail questionsmain idea questionsAnswer the detail questions first, then the main idea questions. P.O.E. (Process of Elimination) Get rid of the answer choices that you know are wrong to help you improve your chances of choosing the right answer. These are all metacognitive (def: thinking about your own thinking) strategies and have been scientifically proven to help students improve test scores.

Okay, Now Let’s Practice. Look at the first article on your handout. What is the title? Skim through the article—what words or graphics stand out to you? What do you think the passage is about? Read the first and last paragraph. Now what do you think the passage is about? Read questions 1-7. Are they main idea or detail questions? Underline the key words that you need to look for as you read. Any last minute ideas about what the passage is about? Okay... now we’re ready to read. Get those pencils out and start marking the words you recognize from the questions. Done reading? What’s the main idea? Now, let’s look at the questions again. Decide whether each question is a MAIN IDEA question or a DETAIL question. Put the questions in the best order to answer—easiest to hardest.

Question #7 Which of the two boxes at the end of the passage should we look at? Find the example in the box that looks most similar to “lkjlkj.” What reason does the author give for why it’s a bad password? Find that reason in the answer choices. Hold up the letter of the correct answer.

Question #3 Look at the types of BAD PASSWORDS described in the boxes at the end of the passage.  Does answer choice “A” go with any of the types?  Does answer choice “B” go with any of the types?  Does answer choice “C” go with any of the types?  Does answer choice “D” go with any of the types? Which answer choice doesn’t go with any of the types of BAD PASSWORDS? Does that answer choice go with any of the types of GOOD PASSWORDS? Hold up the card with the letter of the correct answer.

Question #1 Based on the information the question is asking for, would it make more sense to look for the answer toward the beginning of the passage or toward the end? How would you summarize this part of the passage: Before you can choose a password, however, you must know the types of passwords required. First find out if all letters must be lowercase or if upper- and lowercase are both acceptable. Should the password consist of letters or numbers only, or are special characters permissible? What is the minimum and maximum length allowed? Based on your summary of the part of the passage the question is asking about, which answer choices don’t make sense? Eliminate them. Hold up the card with the letter of the correct answer. Don’t look at your neighbors. Be brave! Show me what you think!

Question #6 Skim through the article to find the paragraph that talks about writing down passwords. What else does the author say in that same paragraph? Which answer choices don’t match up with what the author says there? Eliminate them. Hold up the card with the letter of the correct answer.

Question #2 What is the information in the two boxes at the end of the passage?  What are paragraphs 1 and 2 about?  What are paragraphs 3 and 4 about?  What are paragraphs 5 and 6 about?  What are paragraphs 6 and 7 about? Which paragraphs don’t relate to the information in the boxes at the end of the passage? Eliminate them. Hold up the card with the letter of the correct answer.

Question #4 This question looks like a minor detail question, but it’s really asking about the MAIN IDEA. What is the main idea of the passage? Eliminate answers that don’t go with the author’s main idea. You can generally use your knowledge of the main idea in some way on any question, even if it looks like it’s asking about details. At the very least, the main idea can help you narrow the choices down.  Remember: Anything that eliminates wrong answers gets you closer to the right answer! Hold up the card with the letter of the correct answer.

Question #5 All of these answer choices are points the author makes in PARTS of the passage. But remember that the MAIN IDEA (or, in this case, the “main point”) is the point the author is making EVERYWHERE in the passage. Look at answer choice “A.” Is this idea mentioned EVERYWHERE? Or in just ONE part of the passage? Go through this process with answer choices “B,” “C,” and “D.” Hold up the card with the letter of the correct answer.

Now You Try! Turn to the next passage. Use the Six Step Strategy, decide what order you want to answer the questions, then start using P.O.E. to answer them.

How Did You Do? Hold up the correct answer to Question #1. MAIN IDEA Guess what? This is the MAIN IDEA. Hold up the correct answer to Question #2. skim All you had to do was skim for the words “Learning Partner.” Did you underline them? Hold up the correct answer to Question #3. MAIN IDEA This is a MAIN IDEA question. The only correct answer is the one that would make the whole passage easier to understand, not just one part.

How Did You Do? Hold up the correct answer to Question #4.  Which words should we have scanned for (and underlined) in the passage? Hold up the correct answer to Question #5.  Which words should we have scanned for (and underlined) in the passage? If we forgot to underline them, what heading could we have looked for? How did you do?