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| How to Take a TestAnna Mae TedleyIf you already follow most of these rules, wonderful. You are focused. If you dismiss most of these suggestions, consider changing your ways. 1. The Golden Rule. Every rule can and should be modified or adjusted to fit your individual personality and temperament. The best rules for you are the ones that will best benefit you and your education. I favor a relaxed atmosphere, talking allowed between dictations, and beverages allowed in the classroom. That's me. Big deal. The real question is: What is your situation and what puts you in the best position to pass a test? 2. Nutrition. It matters more than you think. Eat good food, and drink plenty of fluids. How many times have you heard that? Follow it. Athletes don't eat heavy foods right before they perform. Why? For the same reason that people fall asleep after Thanksgiving dinner. When you eat heavy food, your body wants you to be as inactive as possible so that it can concentrate on digesting the food. Eat before and after school. At school, your concentration during class is the deciding factor on whether to eat. If your focus shifts from stenography to cheeseburgers, get something to eat; but the next day, eat at a better time. It takes three days to fully replenish dehydrated cells. Alcohol and caffeine cause more problems than you think. If you party all weekend, you may be suffering from dehydration until Wednesday. 3. Sleep. Can't say enough about it. When you need sleep, your brain doesn't work very well. That's why truckers and pilots are restricted to a set amount of time at the controls. It keeps the insurance rates down. If you have to work on schooldays, you have my sympathy. If you go out partying on a school night, you have problems. You are not thinking very well in more ways than one. 4. Conversation. Some schools don't allow talking at any time during class. Follow their rules. You're goal is education. If they do allow talking, do not allow it to dominate you. You're goal is also education. Never talk during dictation. That's a given. Never. If your instructor allows conversation between takes, keep it to an appropriate level. A short, quiet conversation between two or three people probably won't intrude on those who prefer to remain focused at all times. Do not talk when the instructor is instructing. When your teacher is explaining how to do a certain stroke, shut up. When your teacher is giving out briefs for the next drill, shut up. When the teacher is looking for the next piece of drill material, go ahead, ask your friend what she's having for lunch or whether she is staying all day or whatever your burning question of the moment happens to be. 5. Seating. Sit where it can do you the most good. If you drop endings, why are you sitting in the back? If it makes you nervous to sit in the front, get to class earlier and pick a better seat. If a certain person gets on your nerves, get to class late and pick a seat away from her. If your friends distract you, don't sit with them. 6. Food and drink. No noisy containers. No noisy food. No eating a full lunch during class. No disruption of the class in any way. This subject makes the top ten twice: 7. Supplies. Where is your pen? Where is your notebook? Where is your extra pad just in case? Where is your extra pen just in case? Where is your steno dictionary? Where is your regular dictionary? They should not be in your bag. 8. Paper. Don't run out. I used all of my partial pads. It wasn't hard to tape them together to form a sufficiently large one. Do not enter a class without enough paper on one pad to get you to the test. No excuses are necessary; none are accepted. If you intend to change your paper before the test, have your new paper out of its wrapper and ready to go before class starts. Change it before the instructor starts giving out preview words or don't do it at all. Your focus needs to be on the test. If your machine makes noise with a full pad, make sure you don't use a full pad for a test. It's distracting to everybody. When you reload paper, make sure you stroke enough words to ensure that your paper is threaded properly and is not making noise. The test is the wrong time to find this out. If your paper keeps spilling out of your tray because you loaded it wrong, stop doing it the wrong way. Here is a foolproof way to tell which way your paper is going to refold itself. Don't grab the end of the paper. Pick up the first fold. Feed that into your machine. It easily fits. When it comes out, you first fold is already done. All you have to do is stick it in the tray. The end goes on the bottom, of course. 9. Ink and ribbons. Yes, those cartridges do cost money, but a faded one can cost you a test. I need to see my shadowed strokes. Manual machines have no business being under-inked. A bottle of ink is cheap, and inking your manual machine will increase the life of your ribbon. 10. Preview words. Use your steno machine. No exceptions. You are about to take a test on those very words. This is free practice. Why would you want to write them out longhand? Write your preview words clearly. A misspelled name can cost a test. Most likely, the preview words will appear in your test in the order they were given. That's a very useful tool. Sometimes the instructor will give background information about the test. Write it all down. 11. Briefs. If you make up a job definition for a preview word, write it on a Post-It note and stick it on your machine. Alternately, write it in your notebook large enough so you can instantly find and read it. 12. Warm up. Each day begins with slow rhythmic stroking. Each class hour begins with slow rhythmic stroking. Guess what all the very best athletes and musicians do every time they start a practice session? They warm up. Don't push yourself from the very start. 13. Practice. Are you worn out by test time? Don't do that. You can only push yourself so far. You need to arrive at test time writing at your peak. Is that happening? 14. Focus. Where is your head? Is it out in the parking lot or having lunch? Concentrate. Bad practice is the one and only cause of bad strokes. 15. Posture. There are only three things to keep in mind. One, you must sit with your shoulders square to your machine. Two, your hands must be able to reach all of the keys easily. Three, you should not be changing your basic posture for a test. Drastically changing your position now does two things, and both of them are bad: Radically changing your posture at test time, wipes out the muscle memory that your body has built up over the class period. When your back is readjusted, so are your arms, your hands, and your fingers. What happens is that each letter is now a little closer or further away to your fingers, and you have to adjust your stroke to write properly? It's test time. Wrong time to do that. The other thing that happens is that you have readjusted because of stress. People with stress issues will often straighten up and lean over the machine or hunch over and lean over the machine. Don't worry about your posture right now. That is a symptom. Treat the problem. 16. Stress. What an issue. Divorce, money, sex, drugs, children, religion, work: there are no easy answers to these problems. The important thing is to recognize that you can conquer stress, you can overcome stress, and you can defeat stress, but no matter what you do, you are going to live with stress. Control is the issue. Does it control you, or do you control it? It's hard and can require years of work. On the other hand, here are the easy answers. Slow, deep breathing helps. Certain herbs are touted for their abilities to decrease stress. Certain everyday foods are said to have these same qualities. It often helps just to realize that stress cost you speed. Do you write better at home than school? Work on it. Yes, if you have so much personal stress that it interferes with your schooling, you can completely change your life right now because we know that you don't want to be in the situation that you are presently in. We can't wait to see the new you. But right now, it's test time. That is the only thing you can do right now. For the next five minutes, that test is the only constructive change you can make in your life. Take it and pass it, or take it and learn from the attempt. Either way, do it right. Relax.
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How to Grade a TestHarry S Truman and why you don't put a period after the middle initial. |