Tubman University Placement Exam common mistakes
Tubman University Placement Exam · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Reading a passage once, then answering comprehension items from memory of the general topic rather than returning to the exact lines that support each answer.
Under time pressure, candidates treat the passage as background and pick the option that 'sounds right' or matches their own opinion, so they miss answers that require inference from a specific sentence or from the contrast between two sentences.
What to do instead
For every comprehension item, locate and underline the sentence(s) that justify the choice, and reject any option you cannot tie to a line in the passage. Practise with two-pass reading: first pass for the main idea, second pass scanning for the keyword in the question stem.
Confusing commonly tested word pairs (affect/effect, principal/principle, their/there/they're, its/it's) and choosing the option that sounds familiar rather than the one that fits the grammatical slot.
These pairs are learned by sound rather than by function, so candidates rely on what they have seen most often in print instead of asking what part of speech the sentence needs.
What to do instead
Build a small function-based cheat sheet: affect is usually a verb, effect usually a noun; principal means main or a school head, principle means a rule; its is possessive, it's means 'it is'. Test each pair by substituting 'it is' or 'the main' into the sentence.
Answering 'what is the author's purpose or tone' with the topic of the passage instead of the author's attitude, e.g. writing 'about pollution' rather than 'to persuade readers to act'.
Candidates do not distinguish content from intent, and they lack vocabulary for tone words such as critical, neutral, sarcastic, nostalgic, so they default to naming the subject.
What to do instead
Memorise a short tone/purpose list (inform, persuade, entertain, describe; objective, critical, sympathetic, ironic) and practise stating purpose as a verb phrase: 'to + verb + object'. Ask: what does the author want me to do or feel after reading?
Solving arithmetic word problems by grabbing the numbers and applying the first operation that comes to mind, without first writing what is given, what is asked, and the unit required.
Exam pressure pushes candidates to compute immediately; they also skip the final step of checking whether the answer should be larger or smaller than the inputs, so unit and operation errors pass unnoticed.
What to do instead
Use a three-line setup for every word problem: Given, Asked, Operation. Then estimate the answer before computing and compare. Practise problems where the wrong operation gives a plausible-looking number (e.g. dividing when the question asks for a total).
Making sign, order-of-operations, and fraction errors in multi-step algebra: distributing a negative incorrectly, cancelling across a plus sign, or adding fractions by adding numerators and denominators.
These are procedural habits built in earlier grades and never re-checked; candidates do steps mentally to save time, so a single sign slip silently corrupts the whole solution.
What to do instead
Write one line per step and keep the negative sign attached to its term. For fractions, always rewrite over a common denominator before adding. Substitute your final answer back into the original equation as a habit, and drill 10 mixed problems daily with work shown.
Treating 'increase by 20% then decrease by 20%' as returning to the original value, and misusing percentage change, ratio, and average formulas in quantitative comparison items.
Percentages feel intuitive but are multiplicative, not additive; candidates also confuse 'percent of' with 'percentage points' and average with median, so they pick the intuitive distractor.
What to do instead
Convert every percent change into a multiplier (1.20, 0.80) and multiply in sequence. Learn the three averages (mean, median, mode) with a one-line definition each, and test percent problems with concrete numbers such as 100 before trusting a formula.
In data-interpretation or pattern questions, reading only the first and last values of a table or sequence and extrapolating, instead of checking the trend across all rows or finding the constant difference or ratio.
Candidates under time pressure sample the data rather than scan it, and they do not verify whether a sequence is arithmetic, geometric, or neither before writing a rule.
What to do instead
For every table, state the units, the highest and lowest category, and the direction of change before answering. For sequences, test consecutive differences and consecutive ratios explicitly; only then write the nth-term rule and check it against a middle term.
Mixing up basic science definitions and units: mass versus weight, speed versus velocity, atom versus molecule, and writing answers without units or with the wrong unit.
Everyday speech uses these terms loosely, and candidates memorise labels without the defining property, so a question phrased in an unfamiliar way breaks the association.
What to do instead
For each core term, write a definition plus a one-line contrast with its partner term and its SI unit. Build a unit table (metre, kilogram, second, newton, joule, watt) and attach the unit to every numerical answer in practice.
Answering social studies questions about Liberian and West African geography, history, and government from vague impressions, e.g. confusing the branches of government or placing events in the wrong decade.
These topics are often studied as narrative rather than as retrievable facts, and candidates never practise recalling dates, functions, and place names without notes in front of them.
What to do instead
Make a one-page recall sheet: three branches of government and their functions, key national dates and founding documents, ECOWAS and African Union basics, and a blank map of West Africa you label from memory weekly. Self-quiz by covering the answers, not by rereading.
Writing an essay or short response with no clear thesis and no paragraph structure, then spending the remaining time on handwriting rather than on planning and proofreading.
Candidates believe planning wastes exam time, so they start writing immediately, produce a list of loosely related sentences, and never reread for subject-verb agreement, tense consistency, or comma splices.
What to do instead
Spend the first three to five minutes on a skeleton: thesis sentence, three topic sentences, one supporting example each. Reserve the last three minutes to proofread for the four errors that cost most: sentence fragments, run-ons, subject-verb agreement, and tense shifts. Practise timed 25-minute essays with this routine until it is automatic.