MD POST common mistakes
MD POST · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Reading the passage once, then answering each question purely from memory of the passage rather than locating the sentence that decides the answer.
Under time pressure candidates treat the passage as a story to absorb rather than a source to be mined, so they rely on gist and pick the option that 'sounds right' instead of the one the text supports.
What to do instead
For every question, return to the passage and underline the exact phrase that proves or disproves each option before choosing. Train by doing one passage untimed with a highlighter, marking evidence for every option including the wrong ones, until locating evidence becomes automatic.
Treating extreme or absolute wording ('always', 'never', 'all', 'only') in an answer option as automatically correct because it sounds forceful and confident.
Test-wise candidates often overcorrect in the opposite direction, but many still equate confident tone with authority, and distractor writers exploit that by making wrong options sound decisive.
What to do instead
Apply a two-step check: first flag any option containing an absolute qualifier, then hunt in the passage for the single counterexample or hedge ('often', 'generally', 'most') that kills it. Keep a personal tally of how often absolutes turned out correct versus wrong across practice sets to build calibrated instinct.
Answering inference questions with real-world knowledge or personal opinion instead of what the passage logically implies.
Inference questions feel like opinion questions, and candidates import outside assumptions, especially on familiar topics like health, law, or management.
What to do instead
For each inference option, ask 'which sentence or pair of sentences forces this to be true?' If you cannot point to the forcing text, eliminate it. Practise by writing the implied step in one short sentence before looking at the options.
Choosing the grammatically correct sentence in isolation without checking that it fits the surrounding sentence's tense, subject, and pronoun logic.
Sentence-level editing questions reward local correctness, and candidates stop reading at the underlined portion, missing agreement with a subject or antecedent outside it.
What to do instead
Read the whole sentence, then the whole paragraph, before evaluating options. Circle the subject and the antecedent first, then test each option against them. For verb-tense items, identify the time anchor elsewhere in the paragraph before deciding.
Rewriting sentences to sound more polished or formal when the task is to preserve meaning and fix only the error, producing an answer that is grammatical but changes the author's claim.
Candidates trained to 'improve' writing over-edit, and the most elegant option is frequently a distractor that shifts emphasis, scope, or certainty.
What to do instead
State the original sentence's core meaning in your own words before looking at options, then reject any option that alters scope ('some' to 'all'), certainty ('may' to 'will'), or emphasis. Prefer the minimal edit that removes the error.
Setting up word problems with the wrong operation or variable because the candidate starts calculating before identifying what is being asked and what units are involved.
Time pressure pushes candidates to grab numbers and compute, and word problems deliberately embed distractors, unit mismatches, and reversed relationships.
What to do instead
Before any arithmetic, write three lines: what is given, what is asked, and the unit of the answer. Then write the equation symbolically with defined variables. Check the answer's magnitude and units against the question before selecting an option.
Solving multi-step problems entirely in the head and losing an intermediate result or sign, then selecting an answer that matches the arithmetic slip.
Mental arithmetic feels faster, and answer choices are usually built to include the results of common slips, so the wrong answer looks familiar and plausible.
What to do instead
Write every intermediate step, including signs and unit conversions, on scratch paper. Do a reverse check on the final answer (substitute it back, or estimate roughly) before committing. Practise with a strict 'no mental math' rule until it becomes habit.
Responding to a workplace scenario with what a textbook policy says or what the candidate personally would prefer, ignoring the hierarchy, chain of command, and confidentiality implied by the scenario.
Candidates answer as an idealized professional rather than as the specific role described, and situational items reward the most appropriate action within the stated role, not the most virtuous one.
What to do instead
For each scenario, first identify your role, your authority, and the risk to safety or confidentiality. Rank options by 'appropriate, timely, and within role', preferring direct resolution at the lowest level before escalation, and reserve escalation for safety, legality, or failed local resolution.
Skimming a data table, chart, or written detail and copying a figure that is adjacent to the right one, such as the total instead of the subtotal or last year's value instead of this year's.
Observation items place similar-looking values close together and rely on rapid scanning; candidates match on shape of the number rather than reading the label and column header.
What to do instead
Trace with a finger or cursor from the row label to the column header before reading the value, and say the label aloud mentally ('row: night shift, column: errors'). Re-read the question's required category after locating the value to confirm the match.
Rushing through memory items by pattern-matching to the first familiar-looking option instead of holding the target in mind and comparing all choices.
Recognition feels like recall, and under time pressure the first plausible option triggers a false sense of certainty, especially when options share words with the prompt.
What to do instead
Cover the options, state the answer from memory first, then uncover and match. Where the item involves a sequence or set, rehearse it in a fixed order (chunked, with a mnemonic or spatial structure) during study, and always scan all options before selecting.
Writing incident reports that mix observation with opinion, speculation about motive, or conclusions ('the officer was careless') instead of recordable facts, times, and direct quotes.
Candidates write the way they speak, compressing events into judgments, and they assume the reader shares context that is not in the report.
What to do instead
Use a strict structure: date, time, location, persons present, sequence of observable actions, exact words in quotation marks, and disposition. Delete or convert any adjective that judges ('angry', 'reckless') into observable behaviour ('raised voice', 'ran the red light'). Review by asking whether a reader who was absent could reconstruct the event.
Leaving out essential identifiers and times in a report, or writing a narrative so vague that the sequence of events cannot be reconstructed, because the candidate assumes the reader already knows the case.
The writer has full context in mind and omits what feels obvious, and report-writing items penalize missing names, badge numbers, timestamps, and chain-of-custody details.
What to do instead
Build and memorise a checklist (who, what, when, where, how, evidence handling, notifications made) and apply it to every practice report. Use chronological order with explicit times, and never use pronouns until the full name has appeared once.