My Number Is Honest. What Now?
Exam Performance Investigations Β· Readiness Β· Issue 3 of 3 Β· Code Your Errors (Diagnostic Tool)
Find out where your points actually went, before you decide what to study.
You have done the hard part. You stopped trusting the inflated number and earned an honest one. It might be lower than your old practice scores. That is good news. A lower honest number is a truer one, and for the first time it shows you the real distance between where you are now and where you need to be on exam day.
(This is the third step in a short series. The first issue showed why your practice number was lying to you. The second showed what an honest number actually requires. If you have not read those yet, start there, because they are the reason this tool works. Read the first two issues β)
Now we use that honest score to find the reasons behind the lost points.
The Tool
This tool sorts your misses into four types, so you stop guessing and start working on the thing that actually cost you.
Step 1. Pull your misses.
Take the misses from that honest test. Circle every question you got wrong. Do not skip the ones you are sure were "careless." Those are the point.
Step 2. Code each one.
Run every miss through the flowchart, in order. The first move is the one that tells the truth: re-attempt the question untimed, calm, with no clock. What happens next gives you the code.
π΄ Still wrong untimed? That one is Content. You did not truly know it. Studying fixes this one.
π΄ Right answer untimed? The knowledge was there, so it was a performance miss, and it is one of three:
- Reading the task (error: misread): you answered a different question than the one asked.
- Access and apply (error: access): you knew it, but could not reach it or use it under the clock.
- Execution: you had it, then changed it, rushed, or ran out of time.
Step 3. Log your errors as follows:
Log up to 10 questions as follows:
Error No. β Question/Topic β Code: Content, Misread, Access, Execution
Step 4. Tally.
Count how many landed in each code.
βοΈ Content: _____
βοΈ Misread: _____
βοΈ Access: _____
βοΈ Execution: _____
Step 5. Find your one or two.
Your points are not leaking evenly. They are pouring out of one code, maybe two, and trickling out of the rest. Circle the one or two with the highest count. That is your immediate next step.
Do not try to fix all four. You have limited weeks and a nervous system that can only rebuild one or two habits at a time. Close your single biggest leak completely and you gain more than someone who dabbles at all four, because exam points cluster, and the cluster is where your next pass or fail is decided.
What this tells you, and what it doesn't.
You now know where the breakdowns occurred. Thatβs gold. Few people will take the time to identify them. What it does not give you is the fix, because each code needs a different one. The move that stops a misread is not the move that stops you changing right answers. The work that restores access under pressure is not always content review.
Coding is the start. It replaces "I failed and I don't know why" with "I lost most of my points to misreads and the rest to changing answers." And that is a plan ready to be built.
Misread and access can be hard to tell apart on your own, because the same pressure that caused the miss often blurs your memory of it. That is where a second set of eyes earns its keep.
To get those eyes on yours, and turn your map into a retake plan, join a live Build Your Retake Plan workshop. Learn more here β
β Dynell
Exam Performance Investigations
Each week we explore why capable professionals don't always perform the way their preparation predicts. One important question. One useful investigation.
