I have spent the better part of the last 53 years taking well over a thousand multiple-choice tests. As a teenager, I struggled through high school. Armed with an average IQ and some fairly significant learning disabilities, I barely graduating with a 1.4-grade point average. However, I was smart enough to figure out early on that much of academics, and that achieving success in academics, had far more to do with the ability to master multiple-choice tests than raw intellect. From there I began a 35-year study on the art and science of passing, mastering, and scoring high on multiple-choice tests.
Despite a very substandard high school GPA, I scored high enough on the SAT and the ACT to be accepted to the University of Michigan, one of the top academic institutions in the Country. Upon graduation from college, I accepted a commission as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. As a Marine Officer, I completed dozens of military and civilian schools, including a Master’s Degree from Boston University, and a Juris Doctor Degree from the University of Detroit School of Law. In fact, I earned a full-ride military scholarship to law school based primarily on the fact I scored so highly on the Law School Aptitude Test (98th percentile). Upon completion of law school, I passed the Michigan Bar exam on the first attempt, scoring 149 points on the multistate (the multiple-choice portion of the exam), which was one question away from the automatic passage (at 150 they examiners do not need to grade the essay portion). I have also taken and applied many of the Marine Corps concepts of discipline and mental toughness to the art of preparing for, taking, and passing multiple-choice tests.
Resigning my commission and leaving the Marine Corps in 1990, I continued both my education as well as honing my test-taking skills. I currently hold 12 professional licenses and 5 professional designations, which required me to pass several comprehensive and difficult multiple-choice examinations. I have also attended dozens of professional test preparation courses. From those courses, I have cherry-picked all of the valuable lessons and test-taking tips and have included those in this book.
One of the professional licenses I hold is a paramedic license. As a paramedic, I have gained a much greater understanding of the anatomy and physiology of test-taking. Test-taking is all about the central nervous system, which of course includes the brain. However, as I explain in this book, it is clear that the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems have as much to do with passing and failing multiple-choice tests as does the brain. Accordingly, I have also applied many of those principals in this book.
