This past week I sat down with 2 of my students to chat about their experience passing the RD exam last week. Both of them has failed the exam previously and worked with me 1:1 in addition to my classes. When asked what they felt was the key to them passing the exam on this attempt both of them mentioned that they really felt that this round they had not only focus on learning the material, but also their test taking strategies by doing practice question sessions with me.
You can have every exam material, but if you are not able to apply it to the exam you are going to have difficulty passing the RD exam. You can't forget to work on your test taking strategies in addition to your studying.
When it comes to test taking strategies here are my favorite tips for students:
1) Slow down! If you go to 145 questions you will have about a minute per question on average. If you finish the exam with 45 minutes left you aren't able to go back and review so don't rush. I recommend that at the 60 question market you look at the time and if you are around 60 minutes you are at a good pass. If you are at 80 minutes, you still have time to pick up the pass a little bit. If you come to one of my practice question classes you will notice that I time my students to help them to practice answering questions efficiently. (Next practice question class is 3/16, scroll down for details). 2) Do 3 passes of the question to make sure you understand what it is asking:
1) Read through the question 2) Pick out key words, for math write them down 3) Double check what is asking and what information you actually need to solve
3) If you start to panic/stress take a break. This might sound like a weird piece of advice on a time exam, but if you are overly stressed you aren't going to be able to answer the questions well because your mind is not focused. It is better to take a 30-60 second breathing break to refocus yourself and tell yourself that you can do it than to push on without a clear head. 4) Use the answer bank. A big benefit of this exam is the answer bank. If you aren't sure on a question go to the answer bank ad eliminate any answer often that you know do not fit the question. You can also use the answer bank to plug the answer into the question to see if it makes sense. Remember you are looking for the MOST correct one.
Want more of my favorite study tips? Check out my free exam prep class by clicking the button below!
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