I don’t know about you, but it gets on my nerves when my students complain about having to do tasks.

“Ughhhhhh.”

“This is boooooring.”

“Why do we have to doooo thiiiis?!”

“Mrs. Marks, why do we have to come to school to learn? Why can’t I just have one long, never-ending brain break?”

Okay, I didn’t actually get that last comment, but they might as well be saying that. Although, I can’t really blame them. Sometimes school is boring, and pretending otherwise is, in my opinion, claiming that students should be robots and not think for themselves. Test review IS boring!!

But it doesn’t have to be!!!

Test Question Slap Down is a strategy my school introduced me to, and I tried it on my kids. They seemed to enjoy it much more than doing it the boring way and sitting still in their desks. Though I made my slides last-minute (they were kinda ugly tbh), I made some nicer-looking slides to go along with this strategy so YOU don’t have to. Keep reading to learn more about it and download this resource to level up your classroom.

📝Thinking through questions.

Many of my students choose answers without thinking it through all the way. However, this game forces the students to slow down and truly think about why an answer is wrong, or why it’s a “tricky” choice that’s trying to distract us from the answer.

📝How to articulate their thinking.

This will be true especially if you think aloud with your students. They have to justify why an answer choice is the worst, why it is the distractor, and why it is correct. If you model to your students why you think something is wrong or correct, they will learn how to think through it themselves.

📝What to look for in the correct answer.

Along the same lines, this game will help students learn what to look for in the correct answer. “Worst” answer choices are usually way off-base. “Distractor” answer choices are usually only half-right because they’re tricky and are trying to throw you off. “Correct” answers have text evidence (if this is an ELAR passage you’re reviewing) and are wholly correct.

📝Engagement and Participation

I hate having my students passively sit in their desks, which may or may not allow them to absorb the information. Test Question Slap Down allows the students to become more active participants in the learning activities.