Retaking Old Tests

[moshei24]

Hi!

I'm looking for a few opinions on my little dilemma.

I'm studying for my retake in December. I spoke with Dave, and because my biggest issue on the Oct one was burnout (I scored a 165 on the real test), my studying plan is to take 3 tests this week, then 2-3-2 over the final three weeks, and do no studying on the other days. Of course, I will be reviewing my incorrect answers.

Thing is, I took Dec 2008 on Sunday, and although, I had only vaguely remembered a small minority of the questions, as it has been 6 months since I last took it, I got a 178. I think that can be attributed to having 3 weeks off to get over burnout (which led to a nice increase from my previous avg of 166-167, and high of 168), my new mentality of being more laid back about the test, and partially to having taken it before, but today, I'm taking the Dec 2009 one, and after glancing at it quickly, I think I remember this one pretty well as I took it about two months ago, give or take.

Am I wasting my time retaking these tests? The main reason I'm taking these tests is to stay sharp and keep my stamina up, but would I be better off taking much older fresher tests? Would it be possible for me to get a few opinions on this?

Thanks!

[BethRibet]

Hi Moshe,

In some respects this is a fairly individual question -- meaning you are the best person to judge when you are experiencing cognitive burnout or overload.

On the question of whether it's better to take an unfamiliar, older test, or to re-take one you may have seen before, though neither is a waste of time, my suggestion is to prioritize testing with new material. The chances are too good, that even sub-consciously, you'll remember something about what the right or wrong answers were if you've taken the test before. My feeling is that it's ideal at this point in your preparation to replicate test-taking conditions, where all questions are new to you, as closely as possible.

good luck!

[moshei24]

But I've already done practically every question ever. So those don't really exist anymore...

[moshei24]

Like even tests that I haven't taken (which I don't even have); I've done the questions at some point because I've done practically all the questions in the PowerScore course and online materials, so maybe I'll find a question here and there that I didn't do yet in those tests. And to find tests that I'll have a bunch that I didn't see yet, I'd have to go back to the 90s where things were very different testing style, especially with RC and LG. So... and ironically after doing 2 tests in 3 days I felt some burnout. But I still pulled out a 176 on the second one I retook, but got 10 wrong in the RC; though, I had completely lost focus during that section (my burnout lessened after that section).

I don't want to make the same mistake of being burned out again. I honestly don't think I could still improve much on the test, and I think my main improvement will come from not being burned out as much as possible, because that will let my mind work quickest and allow me to match as close as possible my timed scores to my untimed scores, as I usually have more than enough time to do the questions even when timed (except RC, which is always close) except when feeling burned out and going to slow messes me up or causes me to misread things in LG, which messes up my timing. This is so confusing for me. Help?