Four Tulane University Students Studying January 2008

Test preparation (abbreviated test prep) or exam preparation is an educational course,

tutoring Tutoring is private academic support, usually provided by an expert teacher; someone with deep knowledge or defined expertise in a particular subject or set of subjects. A tutor, formally also called an academic tutor, is a person who provides ...

service, educational material, or a learning tool designed to increase students' performance on standardized tests. Examples of these tests include entrance examinations used for admissions to institutions of

higher education Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after comple ...

, such as

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...

(e.g. the

SAT The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times; originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it was later called the Schol ...

and ACT), business school (the

GMAT The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT ( ())) is a computer adaptive test (CAT) intended to assess certain analytical, writing, quantitative, verbal, and reading skills in written English for use in admission to a graduate management ...

), law school (the

LSAT The Law School Admission Test (LSAT; ) is a standardized test administered by the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) for prospective law school candidates. It is designed to assess reading comprehension as well as logical and verbal rea ...

LNAT The National Admissions Test for Law, or LNAT, is an admissions aptitude test that was adopted in 2004 by eight UK university law programmes as an admissions requirement for home applicants. The test was established at the leading urgency of Oxf ...

), medical school (the

MCAT The Medical College Admission Test (MCAT; ) is a computer-based standardized examination for prospective medical students (both Allopathic M.D. and Ostepathic D.O.) in the United States, Australia, Canada, and Caribbean Islands. It is designe ...

), BMAT, UKCAT and

GAMSAT The Graduate Medical School Admissions Test (commonly known as the GAMSAT, formerly Graduate Australian Medical School Admissions Test) is a test used to select candidates applying to study medicine, dentistry, optometry, pharmacy and veterinary s ...

and

graduate school Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree. The organization and stru ...

(the

GRE The Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) is a standardized test that is an admissions requirement for many graduate schools in the United States and Canada and a few other countries. The GRE is owned and administered by Educational Testing Servi ...

) and qualifying examinations for admission to

gifted education Gifted education (also known as gifted and talented education (GATE), talented and gifted programs (TAG), or G/T education) is a broad group of special practices, procedures, and theories used in the education of children who have been identified a ...

programs.

Preparation options

There are many resources and services on which students may draw as they prepare for standardized tests, including: * Courses: Many test preparation courses are designed to expose students to the breadth of topics tested on the relevant exam and guide them through the process of studying. * Flashcards: Index cards imprinted with information used as a study aid to reinforce memory retention. *

Mind Maps The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...

: Mind maps allow students to visually organize relevant concepts and information, showing relationships among pieces of the whole. * Mock exams: Mock exams are practice exams that help students prepare for the real exam. They are intended to give students a clear indication of the structure and content of the actual exam, as well as a snapshot of their current performance. * Study groups: Studying as group facilitates collaboration and exposes students to different perspectives on the material. * Study Guides: Various organizations and individuals produce published materials that students can incorporate into their preparation. *

Tutor TUTOR, also known as PLATO Author Language, is a programming language developed for use on the PLATO system at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign beginning in roughly 1965. TUTOR was initially designed by Paul Tenczar for use in ...

s: A tutor is a person with whom students work one-on-one to improve academic performance, in this case on an exam.

Resource providers

Most companies and educators that offer test preparation services also offer traditional (hard copy) such as books and printed materials and technology or online-based learning tools, such as content accessible on hand-held devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops. So do most test makers, publishers of self-help, instructional and educational materials, and makers of hardware and software.

Test makers

* ACT, Inc. - publisher of the ACT *

American Council on Education The American Council on Education (ACE) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) U.S. higher education association established in 1918. ACE's members are the leaders of approximately 1,700 accredited, degree-granting colleges and universities and higher educatio ...

(ACE) - publisher of the

GED The General Educational Development (GED) tests are a group of four subject tests which, when passed, provide certification that the test taker has United States or Canadian high school-level academic skills. It is an alternative to the US high ...

test * Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) - publisher of the

test * College Board - publisher of the

test * Educational Testing Service (ETS) - publisher of the

and

TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL ) is a standardized test to measure the English language ability of non-native speakers wishing to enroll in English-speaking universities. The test is accepted by more than 11,000 universities a ...

tests *

Elsevier Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as '' The Lancet'', ''Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', ...

- publisher of the HESI exam * Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) - publisher of the

Harcourt Assessment Harcourt Assessment was a company that published and distributed educational and psychological assessment tools and therapy resources and provided educational assessment and data management services for national, state, district and local assessme ...

- publisher of the

Miller Analogies Test The Miller Analogies Test (MAT) is a standardized test used both for graduate school admissions in the United States and entrance to high I.Q. societies. Created and still published by Harcourt Assessment (now a division of Pearson Education), t ...

(MAT) *

Law School Admissions Council The Law School Admission Council (LSAC) is a nonprofit organization whose members include more than 200 law schools throughout the United States, Canada and Australia. Its headquarters are in Newtown, Pennsylvania (about 15 miles north of Phila ...

(LSAC) - publisher of the

test *

National Restaurant Association The National Restaurant Association is a restaurant industry business association in the United States, representing more than 380,000 restaurant locations. It also operates the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation. The associa ...

- publisher of the ServSafe * Testing Mom -

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" o ...

test prep for parents of

; testing and skill building

Third parties

Barron's Educational Series Kaplan, Inc. is an American for-profit corporation that provides educational and training services to colleges, universities, businesses and individuals around the world. Founded in 1938 by Stanley Kaplan, the company offers a variety of test pre ...

- publisher of books and educational materials *

CliffsNotes CliffsNotes are a series of student study guides. The guides present and create literary and other works in pamphlet form or online. Detractors of the study guides claim they let students bypass reading the assigned literature. The company clai ...

- publisher of study guides * The

Complete Idiot's Guides The ''Complete Idiot's Guides'' is a product line of how-to and other reference books published by Dorling Kindersley (DK). The books in this series provide a basic understanding of a complex and popular topics. The term "idiot" is used as hyperb ...

- publisher of instructional reference books * For Dummies - publisher of instructional/reference books * Gary Gruber - educator and author *

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes refere ...

- publisher of books and educational materials *

Peterson's Peterson's, founded in 1966, is an American company that has a wide range of print and digital products and services, including test preparation, career exploration tools, memory retention techniques, and school, financial aid, and scholarship se ...

- publisher of books and educational materials * SparkNotes - publisher of study guides * Study Notes - publisher of study guides *

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...

- technology company that offers test-maker approved calculators and a variety of test preparation and test-taking tools

Criticism

Some test-preparation programs have been proven to help students improve test scores, but others may have little effect. Test preparation for the SAT and the GMAT is a highly lucrative field. A lot of people have criticism towards exams and testing in the primary and high school environment, the number one type of testing in Australia that receives criticism is NAPLAN. Parents and teachers have put forward numerous cases stating the stress it is having on children and how pointless it is.{{Cite web, url=http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/auscurric/articles/naplan_timeforadeepbreath.pdf, title=Time to take a breath

References