Test Taking Strategies
Footnotes are often found at the ___________ of a page; reading these will define unusual vocabulary and provide context.
What is the bottom?
This is the exact number of multiple-choice questions you will answer in Part 1, making each question worth exactly one point.
What is 24?
This should be the final sentence of your introduction paragraph, making an argument and leaving no doubt where you stand on the issue.
What is the thesis statement?
Skipping Part 3 entirely because it is only worth 8 points and you're tired often results in this final outcome for students on the exam.
What is failing the exam?
A problem that causes tension in a story, which can manifest as either internal or external.
What is conflict?
This strategy involves covering up the choices, answering the question on your own first, and knocking out at least two options that cannot be right.
What is the process of elimination? (Usually there will be two answers that could be correct- choose the best answer)
You aren't punished for wrong answers on the Regents, so you should never do this on the multiple choice question section.
What is leave them blank?
To avoid losing points, your body paragraphs must draw evidence from a minimum of this many provided source texts.
What is three?
To secure a score of at least a 3 on the rubric, your essay must connect at least one literary technique/writing strategy to this very important part of your essay.
What is the central idea or thesis?
Descriptive writing designed to directly stimulate one or more of the human senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell.
What is imagery?
It's a good idea to do this before writing your essays to make sure your essays have an organized, coherent structure.
What is outlining?
When reading the passage for a second time, you should perform this specific action in the margins after completing each paragraph.
What is summarizing the main idea?
In the directions for this essay, it tells you to "distinguish your claim from alternate claims," which basically means write this type of paragraph.
What is the counterargument/ rebuttal?
The minimum number of direct quotes or pieces of text evidence you need to locate, highlight, and analyze in your body paragraph.
What is two or three?
A direct comparison between two distinct things that explicitly uses the signal words "like" or "as"
What is a simile?
To save time and maintain accuracy, you should physically do this to the areas of the text that the multiple-choice questions specifically ask about.
What is locating/highlighting and annotating the lines?
The multiple choice section is worth about this percent of your final grade.
What is approximately 40 percent? (43 to be exact)
You should do this whenever you introduce a direct quote or are paraphrasing from the sources.
What is cite/include a citation? (include line numbers)
The number of writing strategies (literary devices, techniques or appeals) which should be analyzed in this type of essay?
What is one or more?
A rhetorical appeal to the credibility or trustworthiness of the speaker.
What is ethos?
Reading the multiple-choice questions before reading the text is a smart strategy for this specific type of passage because it has fewer items.
What is poetry (the poem)?
The three types of texts you will get on the multiple choice section of the ELA Regents.
What are fiction, poetry, non-fiction?
You can use these special punctuation marks when you have a long quote and want to cut out part of the middle section (e.g. "blah blah blah.... blah blah blah.")
What are ellipses?
According to the language of the rubric, the kind of central idea and writing strategy you need in order to score a 4 in the "Content and Analysis" section of the essay.
A "thorough central idea" and a "thorough writing strategy analysis"
When two opposing ideas are juxtaposed in the same sentence. (e.g., one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind)
What is antithesis?