  TEST PREP  DEFINING COMMON EXAM INSTRUCTION WORDS

DEFINING COMMON EXAM INSTRUCTION

WORDS
Part of Study Skills For Dummies Cheat Sheet (UK Edition)

When answering an exam question, it’s easy to misread what’s being asked and simply answer it in
the wrong way. Your argument may be logical, thoughtful and well researched, but if you aren’t
tailoring your response to the question, you stand to lose some serious marks! Below are de nitions
of some common instruction words.

Instruction word What you have to do

Analyse Take apart an idea, concept or statement and examine and

criticise its sub-parts in detail. You have to be methodical and
logical.

Assess Describe a topic’s positive and negative aspects and say

how useful or successful it is, or consider its contribution to
knowledge, events or processes (this is usually about how important
something is).

Criticise Point out a topic’s mistakes or weaknesses as well as its

favourable aspects. Give a balanced answer (this will involve some
analysis rst).

Compare Put items side by side to see their similarities and

di erences – a balanced (objective) answer is required.

Contrast Emphasise the di erences between two things.

De ne Give the meaning of an idea, either a dictionary de nition or

from an academic authority in your subject of study (technical
de nition).

Describe Give details of processes, properties, events and so on.

Discuss Describe, explain, give examples, points for and against, then
analyse and evaluate the results.

Evaluate Similar to discuss, but with more emphasis on a

judgement in the conclusion.
Examine Take apart and describe a concept in great detail.

Explain Give detailed reasons for an idea, principle or result,

situation, attitude and so on. You may need to give some analysis
as well.

Illustrate Give concrete examples – including gures or diagrams.

Illustrate is usually added on to another instruction.

Interpret Explain and comment on the subject and make a judgement

(evaluation).

Justify Give reasons to support a statement – it may be a

negative statement, so be careful!

List Provide an itemised series of parts, reasons or qualities,

possibly in a table.

Prove/disprove Provide evidence for or against and demonstrate logical

argument and reasoning – you often have to do this for
abstract or scienti c subjects.

Relate Emphasise the links, connections and associations, probably

with some analysis.

Review Analyse and comment brie y, in organised sequences –

sentences, paragraphs or lists – on the main aspects of a
subject.

State Give the relevant points brie y – you don’t need

to make a lengthy discussion or give minor details.

Suggest Give possible reasons – analyse, interpret and evaluate.

(This is also the verb most commonly used to quote another
author.)

Summarise or outline Just give the main points, not the details.

Trace Give a brief description of the logical or chronological stages

of the development of a theory, process, a person’s life and
so on. Often used in historical questions.
  TEST PREP  TASC MATH EXAM: COMPARING FRACTIONS, DECIMALS, AND PERCENTAGES

TASC MATH EXAM: COMPARING FRACTIONS,

DECIMALS, AND PERCENTAGES
RELATED BOOK

TASC For Dummies

By Stuart Donnelly

Numbers come in all shapes, sizes, and forms, such as fractions, decimals, and percentages. When a
TASC Math question asks you to compare numbers or put a set of numbers in a certain order, it’s
easiest to do when they’re all in the same form.

ADVERTISING

Converting fractions to decimals. To convert a fraction to a decimal, divide the numerator by

the denominator. The quotient could result in a terminating, repeating, or non-terminating, non-
repeating decimal.
To represent repeating decimals, put a bar over the digits that repeat.

Converting decimals to fractions. If the decimal is terminating, meaning it ends, you put the
given digits over a power of 10. If there are two digits, you put them over 102 and then simplify if
possible. Check out this example:

You can always check your work by dividing numerator by denominator to make sure you get the
same decimal you started with. Here’s another conversion example, this one with three digits:
 If the decimal is repeating, put the given repeating digits over 9s (depends on the number of
digits that repeat). If there’s one digit that repeats, then it goes over one 9; if there are two digits
that repeat, they go over two 9s, so 99. Then simplify if possible. For example:

Here’s another example:

Converting percentages to decimals. To convert a percentage to a decimal, you must

consider how you got that percentage in the rst place. Percentage literally means per 100, so to
go from a percent to a decimal, you move the decimal two places to the left. Mathematically this
means you’re dividing by 100. Take at look at these examples:

PRACTICE QUESTIONS

1 Which of the following is listed in ascending order?

2 Which of the following is in descending order?

ANSWERS AND EXPLANATIONS

ANSWERS AND EXPLANATIONS

1 The correct answer is Choice (A).

Comparing numbers in di erent forms can be di cult, so you want to rewrite them all into
the same form (usually decimals is the easiest).

.6 is already a decimal,

and 350% = 3.5. Now that they’re all in decimal form, you need to remember what ascending
means: smallest to largest. This means the order should be

Substituting back in the original values, you get:

which is Choice (A).

2 The correct answer is Choice (D).

First rewrite each of the numbers into the same form (decimal form is probably the easiest).

Now you can order them in descending order, which means from largest to smallest: 2.64, .7,
.05, .03 and then substitute your original numbers back in:

thus Choice (D) is correct.