Why practice tests benefit teachers (not just students)
- Brennan Koch
- Jan 23
- 4 min read
It’s obvious that practice tests are helpful for students. I love using them to reduce anxiety, improve performance, and ensure each student understands the breadth of the material. But there are some hidden benefits as well. Practice tests help you, the teacher! Here is how giving a practice test for each unit benefits teachers by improving instruction, reducing grading, supporting assessment, and saving time.
Structure of the practice test
I will briefly describe the structure and usage of my practice tests. The test is slightly shorter than the real test. I give a flavor of each type of question without having to empty my whole arsenal. I post an entire key to the classroom. The key shows all my work so students can follow the logic. This helps reduce the handholding. Our school requires us to offer retakes on tests. Each department can choose their own standards for them. The science department uses a “key” to unlock the ability to retake. My key is that the student turns in the completed practice test before they take the real test. It is only worth 1 point. Therefore the students recognize that the only benefit to doing the practice test is to prepare themselves and to give them the opportunity to retake if needed. As a result, fewer retakes are necessary.
Teacher Benefit #1: Practice tests reveal gaps in content coverage
I’m sure it’s happened to you before, too. You rearrange the order of your lessons and forget to go back and fix one tiny point of content. The practice test will expose that. Good students will ask about the skill that they are lacking, which immediately highlights gaps in instruction. That allows you to solve that problem for the class. Or maybe you have multiple periods of the same class and just forgot to tell one class about that small topic. The practice test gives you live feedback on how well you have taught content.
Teacher Benefit #2: Practice tests spread student support over time
Chemistry is challenging and reteaching and supporting kids outside class time is just part of our world. Using a practice test helps to spread the flood of help that is needed from the day before the test over a longer period. You find out sooner if the students are struggling and can help appropriately. This support happens with more breathing room before the test.
Teacher Benefit #3: Practice tests reduce grading without sacrificing learning
In each chapter, there are so many assignments that you can give your class and expect to get back. You should grade at least some of those assignments. (If you want another article on assessing more and grading less, go here.) Giving a practice test with a full key posted takes up one of those assignments. But since the goal is for kids to have access to a meticulously worked out key, you don’t have to grade the practice test. The students get the opportunity to interact with the content, and you don’t have to be the gatekeeper for their success through grading.
Teacher Benefit #4: Practice tests allow harder questions on the test
Giving the students opportunities on the practice test to work through challenging, multi-layered questions will help them be able to navigate that style of question on the real test. For my class, these questions often revolve around labs or real-world applications. If the students have worked through a real-world scenario before, they are more able to demonstrate their understanding on the test. This benefits you, because you are free to ask more challenging questions. Deep questions allow you to separate students more precisely through grading. If your test is too easy, everyone gets an A, including students with a lower understanding. But if you can include challenging application questions, only the best students get an A. This creates a more accurate representation of what a student knows and can do — exactly what grades are supposed to measure.
Teacher Benefit #5: Practice tests find errors on the high-stakes test
I’m sure it has happened to you. You write the perfect test, or so you think. And every kid in the class gets tripped up on a particular question. It could be the way you wrote it. It could be the way that you taught the content. All you know is that something broke. By using a practice test, you can improve the flow and accuracy of your real test. You see where the logic is broken before the high stakes test. This is particularly true in my school, where tests are required to be 80% of the students’ grades. A smooth, clear, and well-understood test allows you to more accurately assess your students. That is definitely a benefit to you.
As you can see, practice tests, though some work up front, will benefit you as a teacher. And of course they help the students. That is a true win-win.
I just finished my naming compounds unit. It was so helpful to be able to use CHeMgO to have a fun way for students to practice ionic formulas at their exact level. CHeMgO is a bingo-style classroom game that has four levels of challenge. As the class grows, so does the game. It starts at binary ionic compounds and goes all the way up to a mixture of acids, transition metals, and polyatomic ions. Check it out!
