No Tricks! Exam Questions are Just Carefully Crafted

You may hear this when speaking with some OREA students: I failed because the questions were tricky! or They’re just trying to trick us!

A trick is an intended scheme to deceive. That’s the last thing an exam tester wants to do. Clarity and precision is very important to ensure that the question is reliable. Building effective exam questions is a real skill. Typically, a person complaining that a question is tricky hasn’t grasped the depth of understanding necessary to answer it correctly. Often, exam day jitters cause students to panic and read questions faster, missing key words in the process.

​​​​​​​Don’t be the person who thought they aced the exam and then failed. That’s not trickery . . . that’s powerful questions. You need lots of study time and practice to challenge an OREA exam.