Better test taking. This study tip regards better test taking. How often do you make the following statement to yourself after taking a test: "I was able to do the homework, but I choked during the test." Well, for some students I must tell you honestly that instructors have heard such comments for years, and in most cases, they are a coverup for a lack of proper study habits. But, here is one way you might try to deal with such difficulty. One aspect of a test question is that it does not have the answer for you to check your work. If your are on a job, and had to do the same question and had to get it correct, what would you do? You would work it very deliberately. You might work it more than one time, or you might try to work it another way, or to check the result in one or more ways. Now try to instill this same habit when doing your homework. Whether or not the answer to an exercise is in the back of the book, try to treat each exercise like a test question. In other words, get in the habit of treating all of your homework exercises as if they were test questions. To take this one step further, always do some exercises which do not have answers as part of your homework, whether or not your instructor has assigned them. The result of such a way to approach a test, is to give you practice before you take a test. In other words, you get "in the habit" of taking test questions by the way you approach your homework. Let me make a sports analogy here. You go to a basketball game. What do the players do before the game? They shoot baskets, don't they? They play the first half, go to the locker room and come out for the second half. What do they do before the second half, even though they have just played a 20 minutes of basketball? They shoot baskets again! You do like the basketball players with your math tests. Create more and more situations where you practice taking test questions by treating each homework exercise like a test question and by doing exercises for which you have no answers. Good luck! Please let me know how it works: exponent@AOL.COM.