Lesson Plan: Test-Taking Vocabulary

“Students Become the Test-Writers”

Kick off final exam season with this interdisciplinary lesson plan about test-taking vocabulary that puts students in their teachers’ shoes. Students will review exam vocabulary and then use these key terms to write and answer questions for their peers about subjects they’ve studied.

Objectives
Students will:
  • Review key test-taking vocabulary
  • Write test questions about topics they’ve studied using test-taking vocab words
  • Practice answering questions written by their peers

Standards
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.5.2.D
    Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.5.4
    Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.5.2
    Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.5.1.C
    Pose and respond to specific questions by making comments that contribute to the discussion and elaborate on the remarks of others.

Materials
Products Created
  • Questions and responses about academic subjects using key test-taking vocabulary

Time
  • 1-2 class periods

Sequence
    1. Watch the Flocabulary Test-Taking Vocabulary video, “On Trial.” Click on the interactive lyrics tab and the blue bolded lyrics for more information and examples of each vocabulary word. Have students read through these infoboxes and recall times they’ve encountered words like “infer,” “evaluate” and “summarize” on exams or assignments.
    2. Pick another Flocabulary video about a topic you’ve studied to watch as a class, or let students pick their own video(s) about subjects like language arts, social studies or science. Have students watch the video(s) and read through the infoboxes to review the topic.
    3. Tell students that they’re now going to experience writing test questions about their topic. Have students write 3-5 questions testing on material from the video; each question should use at least one test-taking vocab word. When students are writing their questions, they can consider things like: What is an important point from the video that I want to test someone on? Which vocabulary word(s) would work best for the question—“evaluate,” “infer,” “summarize” or a different word? For example, questions that could be created for the World War I social studies video include, “Explain three causes of World War I” and “Compare and contrast what people expected the war to be like with what it was actually like.”
    4. Have students pair up and swap “tests” with a partner and write responses to their partners’ test questions.

Wrap Up/Extensions:
    1. Have students discuss or write about which kind of test questions they find the easiest and most difficult to answer. For example, do they find “summarizing” or “comparing and contrasting” easier? Why?
    2. Encourage students to use this question-writing technique to help them study for exams. They can anticipate and create questions using these vocabulary words that their teachers might ask on the test and answer them individually, or they can write and swap questions with members of a study group.

Guided Reflection
  • “I used to think _______, and now I think _______.”
  • “One thing I learned is __________, and one question I still have is _________.”