Use practice tests to improve chemistry performance (and your own teaching).
- Brennan Koch
- Apr 4
- 5 min read
We as teachers largely use tests as the measuring stick of success for our students. By proxy, we are measuring the success of our teaching. Why then, are we so secretive about what’s on our tests? If the material on the test equals success, then the students should know what is coming. Enter practice tests. Over the past few years, my use of practice tests for both grade-level and AP chemistry has increased dramatically. And student success has also gone up. Here is how I use practice tests.
Every unit gets a practice test
Our school requires teachers to allow at least some retakes on tests. I give three per semester in my class. The key that unlocks their ability to retake a test is for them to complete the practice test. Every unit, every kid gets a practice test. This is a great way for the students to self-measure their current abilities. It also allows me as their teacher to recognize where the weak spots are. If I keep getting questions about a particular topic on the practice test, it means it wasn’t clear to the kids. This allows me to adapt my lessons to fill in these gaps. This is especially true in AP Chem. We are going so fast, it can be hard to remember if you taught all of the minutia. A practice test will reveal that. (This is especially true if you have taught for as long as I have, and the lessons are echoing in your brain from multiple decades. Sheesh, I’m old.)
Every practice test gets a key
I post the entire key for the practice test to the class (we use OneNote). It is not just a key of the answers, but it is all my work to get there. I simply snap photos on my phone of my work and post them. That way, each kid can self-analyze their abilities. Do some just cheat? Of course. Are they the same ones who would have just cheated on the real test? Also, yes. But the benefits of having an entire key posted far outweigh the risks.
Practice tests aren’t graded
I do not grade practice tests. Goodness knows, I don’t need any more grading. This feels especially true right now during mock AP exam season where I am scoring AP chem and AP bio mock exams. The key is published. The kids have direct access to it on their phone. If I have developed the correct culture of striving in my room, then grading the practice test is not worth my time. Kids will grade it and then come to me with issues. That has infinitely more value than the difference between a 17/20 or an 18/20 on an assignment. Their gradebook gets either a 1 or a 0 for turning it in completed.
Don’t throw away old ones, add them
The more years I write practice tests, the more I change them. Sometimes I just want to completely rewrite them to more specifically align with the content. Don’t throw away those old practice tests. Instead, publish them. I put old practice tests on OneNote. That way, students who are really struggling have even more practice (with a full key). Or when a student does need to retake a test, I can tell them that they have to complete the second practice test before they can retake. That way they are getting even more self-directed practice.
You can add even more practice with your phone. Write a practice problem on the board? Snap a photo before you erase it. Then post it. The other value I find with excessive practice and keys available is for parents and special ed. Parents occasionally want to come in hot because their kid is failing. But after they see all the practice that is available to them, it becomes very hard to argue that the fault lies with me, the teacher. It is clear that an incredible amount of scaffolding was available to the kid. They just didn’t use it. I know that I am exceptionally lucky to have the special ed department that I do. They have access to all the practice tests and keys as well. They will work individually on those to prepare the kids for success. That way, special ed teachers aren’t guessing as to what is on the test either.
Mock AP Exams
I know most of us that teach AP already use practice tests for the national test. I do recommend creating a full 3+ hour mock exam opportunity for the kids. It is healthy for them to experience what the impact is on their brain. It is a lot of effort. I had a top student tell me after taking her mock exam this year, “I wasn’t even that tired after the SAT. That was hard!” This is exactly the reason they need to feel it. I try to set up the mock exam not in my classroom. That way, it feels more authentic. They get the same timing. Same breaks. Again, if your culture is set, you will get high levels of participation and effort. This is also a good tool to analyze where review is needed. I do the mock exam with over a month left before the test. I still have to complete the last unit! Even with the whole in their understanding, it helps me know where review should be focused.
An unintended consequence of taking an early mock exam is that kids are forced to try to squeeze points out of content they don’t yet know. Here is an example. I haven’t done electro yet. One of the free response questions this year dealt with a redox problem where they have to identify how many moles of electrons are moved. I train my kids to look at an FRQ question they don’t know how to answer and then look downstream of that question to see if they could get any downstream points. If so, and they are sure they can’t do the first one, they take the loss on the first one by filling in something simple. Then they can use their wrong answer correctly on the downstream problems.
This happened in this year’s mock exam. A kid didn’t know how to find out how many electrons moved (don’t worry, he will in a week). So, his work said: I have five finger, two ears and nose. Therefore log 5 – log ½ = 7 moles of electrons. (Don’t judge his math, the idea made me smile!) Then he took the 7 moles of electrons and correctly applied it to the next problem. That problem was delta G = nFE. All the data was available to him except e, so he just went for it. I was super proud of his logic. He will be able to do that problem in earnest in the future, but what a great practice.
Use practice tests. Give your kids stunning clarity on where they need to be to succeed. Then allow their effort to patch their own weaknesses guide your instruction in the class. You will become a more effective teacher and they will become more at ease. It’s worth the effort.
Need some practice that isn't written during the year? Use chemistry games! I have teachers all the time telling me that reviewing with Stoich Decks games has been a value to their kids. Check them out.
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