The Ultimate Test-taking Strategy: “Always go with your first answer”
As students we lack control over what exactly is tested on the exam, and don’t always have time to study the entire material fully. As a consequence, we often feel we can compensate for our lack of knowledge with some test-taking techniques. For example, one such technique is called the “when in doubt pick C”, and consists of choosing “C” as an answer when no answer seems better than the other.
Several psychology courses ago, I made a pact with myself: to never change my answers on a multiple choice test, unless I had a good reason to do so. I had too many vivid memories of test answers changed at the last minute, when the first answer I wrote down ended up being the correct one. I also held a conviction that my first answer was the best one because it was my gut feeling, whereas alternate answers were only noise and were not worth considering.
Turns out, I was not the only one using this “gut feeling” strategy. According to research, three out of four college students believe that changing their answers on a test lowers their grades. This same research also found that most teachers would recommend students keep their initial answers on tests. As a matter of fact, I experienced this in several classes I took in university. Both friends and teachers seemed inclined toward this strategy. When I asked one of my friends her reason for doing so, she replied the perfect answer, which was that science had proven it.
That’s when I decided to do my own research and find evidence for what so many people were telling me. Sadly, research didn’t exactly tell me what I wanted to hear. I learned that most people who change their answers on tests end up with a better grade than those who don’t. If this is really the case, then why do we feel as though keeping our first answers is a good strategy?
Apparently it has something to do with counterfactual thinking. We think we are lowering our score by changing our answers for new ones while actually, that’s not the case. The reason we think that is purely psychological. We are biased toward remembering instances in which we wrongly changed our response because they cause a lot of frustration. We feel as though we made a mistake that almost did not happen, that we would have gotten right…This kind of self-recrimination is not as present in other cases in which we make a mistake but kept our original answer, because keeping the status quo is not as hard as making a change. We also don’t remember instances where we changed our answer to the correct response as well as a when we change correct answers to wrong answers.
I now understand that my multiple choice test-taking strategy might not be the best one out there…although I am reluctant to say that I’ll change it and face fear-inducing strategies that go against my first gut feeling.
References:
Kruger, J., Wirtz, D., & Miller, D. T. (2005). Counterfactual thinking and the first instinct fallacy. Journal of personality and social psychology, 88(5), 725.
