Praxis Core common mistakes
Praxis Core · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Choosing an answer to a reading passage question because it repeats wording from the passage, without checking whether it actually answers what was asked.
Under time pressure, matching surface words feels like evidence, and the brain treats familiarity as correctness; distractors are deliberately written to echo passage language.
What to do instead
Cover the answer choices, state the answer in your own words first, then pick the choice closest to your paraphrase and reject any choice justified only by repeated wording.
Answering a reading question about the author's main point or purpose with a detail or example from the passage.
Details are easier to locate and verify than the overall structure, so candidates grab the first true statement they find instead of synthesizing the whole passage.
What to do instead
Before looking at choices, write a one-sentence summary of the passage's overall claim or function; eliminate any choice that is merely a supporting detail or is true but not central.
Treating a paired passage set as one passage and picking an answer that only one author would accept.
Candidates read the second passage as a continuation rather than a separate viewpoint and lose track of who said what.
What to do instead
After each passage, jot a five-word stance label for that author (e.g., 'supports, with caveats'); for questions about agreement or difference, check the chosen answer against both labels.
Judging a sentence's correctness by whether it sounds right when read quickly, rather than checking the specific grammar issue the question targets.
Spoken-language intuition accepts errors like pronoun case, subject-verb agreement across interrupting phrases, and misplaced modifiers because casual speech tolerates them.
What to do instead
For each sentence, isolate the tested element (subject and verb, pronoun and antecedent, modifier and noun) and test it in a stripped-down version of the sentence before reading the choices.
Selecting a revision that fixes the original error but introduces a new one, such as a comma splice or a sentence fragment.
Attention is focused on the flagged problem, so the rest of the rewritten sentence goes unverified once it looks improved.
What to do instead
After choosing a revision, reread the full resulting sentence and confirm it has one independent clause joined legally and no new punctuation or agreement problem.
Writing an essay that states a position but never addresses the counterargument or the complexity of the issue.
Candidates equate a persuasive essay with assertiveness and worry that acknowledging another view weakens the argument, so they omit it entirely.
What to do instead
Plan one sentence conceding a legitimate opposing point and one sentence rebutting or qualifying it, and place that pair before the conclusion.
Spending the full time on the first few math problems, forcing rushed guesses on later questions of equal value.
Early questions feel solvable and candidates are reluctant to abandon a problem they have already invested effort in.
What to do instead
Set a per-question cap (roughly one to one-and-a-half minutes); if the cap passes without a clear path, mark the question, choose a placeholder, and move on, returning only if time remains.
Applying a formula from memory without checking that the problem's units, scale, or given quantities match the formula's assumptions.
Recognizing a familiar problem type triggers retrieval of a formula, and the mismatch (mixed units, diameter given instead of radius, percent versus proportion) goes unnoticed.
What to do instead
Before computing, write down the given quantities with their units and the unit the answer requires, then confirm the formula's inputs match those units exactly.
Answering the quantity asked for in an intermediate step rather than the quantity the question actually requests.
Multi-step word problems reward finding a number, and once a meaningful number appears, the solver stops and looks for it among the choices.
What to do instead
Underline the final question sentence before solving and restate it as 'I need ___'; after computing, compare the result to that restatement before selecting.
Estimating a fraction, percent, or decimal comparison by feel and choosing the option that 'looks bigger'.
Common fraction and percent equivalences are recalled imprecisely, and visual intuition about denominators misleads when numerators differ.
What to do instead
Convert all quantities in a comparison to a common form (decimals or a common denominator) on scratch paper before ranking them.