Different states have distinct policies for learners who fail these exams. Sometimes, learners are allowed to submit high school “portfolios” of their work in place of a passing score on the exam. In most states, remedial instruction is offered to learners who fail the exams along with retesting opportunities. Remedial courses may be held during the school day or in the summer. In most cases, learners will have up to four chances to retake the test. If you are curious about the options you have if you fail your exit exam, ask a guidance counselor or educator how your school handles these issues.
Ensuring that you pass
The easiest way to ensure a passing score on your exit exam is to remain on top of things in your core high school courses. If you perform at an average level or higher, you should have no problem passing the exam without preparation. If you are worried that you have forgotten some of the skills that will be tested, you can always go back and review content from previous courses.
For instance, you might want to revisit certain algebra and geometry ideas that you learned earlier in high school. You could look over geometrical terms and formulas since questions about finding angle measurements within triangles and calculating the distance between two points are common. Topics in algebra, such as exponents’ properties, factoring, and functions, also show up on these tests.
You can complete a high school exit exam practice test and complete practice questions online for state assessments. Ask an educator or educational advisor for information on practice content for your state assessment. This will help you get an idea of what the tests are like and how worried you should be about them. If you are concerned about the reading and writing sections, you could try writing a practice essay based on an old prompt and doing official practice reading questions. This will help you become familiar with the types of passages on the test and know how to structure your essay’s workflow.
You can practice reading the passages if you tend to run out of time, but keep in mind that you do not need to earn a perfect score. Unless the questions make you feel lost, you will probably pass your state’s exit exam!
