Remember Everything You Read: The Evelyn Wood 7-Day Speed Reading \& Learning Program pdfdrive com

Essay Tests
Essay questions often strike the greatest dread in the hearts of
students. Some fear that they “don’t write well enough to ace this kind
of test.” Others are afraid because “essay tests are so open-ended! I
never feel sure I have the right answer or approach.”
But students who have prepared properly have little to fear—so long
as they tackle these questions systematically. Here is a basic plan:
Step 1.
Know and identify the key “action” or “clue” words that
characterize essay tests.
When you see one of these words, underline it and start your mind

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working in the appropriate direction. The key words include the
following:
• “Explain.” The teacher wants you to answer the question by telling
what a particular principle or process is, how it operates and how it
works.
• “Describe.” The teacher expects you to give a word picture of the
appearance of an item or concept, its nature or some process
identified in the question.
• “Discuss.” You must describe the arguments for and against the issue
or point described in the question.
• “Define.” The teacher wants the exact meaning of the term or word.
A one-line or one-word definition usually won’t do.
• “Compare.” Your instructor wants you to describe the stated ideas,
people or events briefly and then show how they are alike and how
they are different. When you’re organizing your answer, it should be
acceptable to divide it into these three parts: 1. the basic
descriptions of the items; 2. the ways they are alike; 3. the ways
they are different.
• “Enumerate.” The teacher wants you to list every point as though
you were counting them. Generally speaking, unless the instructions
say otherwise, you should just list your points without giving
details.
• “Prove.” This word calls on you to give evidence, facts or figures to
show that what you say in the essay is true.
• “Outline.” The teacher wants you to list only the important ideas,
and to group the less important, supportive ideas under them.
• “Evaluate.” You’re required to give the points for and against a stated
position or situation. Then, you should state your own personal
opinion or conclusion.
• “Summarize.” The teacher wants you to write a brief statement of the
main points, but you’re not to go into detail.
Step 2.
Preview each of the essay questions.

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Assume, for example, that there are seven questions, and you’re to
answer four of them in an allotted time of two hours.
Using your fast previewing techniques, you should go over each
question with an S or question-mark hand motion. Then, after you
complete your preview of each question, draw a brief slash recall
pattern and fill in the main relevant points you’ll need to answer the
question. The pattern might be drawn in the margin or on a separate
sheet of paper. Do this for all the questions, even though you’ll
eventually only select four.
How long should it take to complete this process of previewing and
drawing brief slash recalls on all the questions? I generally
recommend that you devote about one-fourth to one-sixth of the total
time for the test. So in our example, with a total test time of two
hours, you should spend about twenty to thirty minutes on this
preview.
Why do a slash recall for all the questions?
First, it’s difficult if not impossible to evaluate your knowledge of a
question without doing some serious thinking about it—and that
usually necessitates putting something down on paper.
Assume that you just glance over the questions and make your
selection too soon. You may find later that you actually had much
more information on one of the questions that you initially discarded,
simply because at first glance it seemed too tough.
Second, a seemingly easy question may turn out not to be easy
because you don’t have any solid information to back up your
opinions and conclusions.
So it’s best, in effect, to take the whole test—albeit rather quickly!
This will be time well spent because you’ll be in a position to evaluate
all the questions and select the ones that are really best for you.