Stanford 10 common mistakes
Stanford 10 · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Selecting a reading comprehension answer because it is true in real life or matches the student's own experience, without locating supporting text in the passage.
Familiar passage topics trigger prior knowledge, and standardized items deliberately include distractors that are factually true but not stated or implied in the passage.
What to do instead
Before marking, physically point to the sentence or paragraph that proves the choice. If no line can be found, eliminate the choice even if it sounds correct.
Choosing a vocabulary-in-context item using the word's most common everyday meaning instead of the meaning it carries in the sentence.
The dominant sense of a word is retrieved automatically and competes with the context-specific sense, especially for common words used in an unusual way.
What to do instead
Substitute each option back into the original sentence and read the whole sentence through. Then check nearby context clues such as contrasts, examples, or appositives for confirmation.
Answering a main-idea question with a specific detail that appeared early in the passage.
Opening sentences and concrete details are the most memorable content, and a detail-based option often restates the passage almost verbatim, making it feel safe.
What to do instead
Before looking at the options, state the whole passage's point in one self-written sentence. Reject any option that covers only a single paragraph or supplies only an example.
Solving a multi-step word problem using only the first numbers encountered and ignoring later constraints or extra information.
Under time pressure, students begin computing as soon as they see numbers rather than reading to the end of the item.
What to do instead
Write down the actual question being asked before computing, list which quantities are needed, and explicitly decide whether any remaining number is a distractor.
Stopping at a correct intermediate value and selecting it, for example reporting the amount of the discount when the question asks for the final price.
The intermediate result is a real number the student just produced, and test writers place it among the options, so it feels like a finished answer.
What to do instead
Reread the final sentence of the problem after computing, label the answer with units, and ask whether that labeled quantity is exactly what was requested.
Misreading decimal place value or unit labels, such as choosing an option with the correct digits but an answer in centimeters instead of meters or in minutes instead of hours.
Distractor options are often the same digits with the decimal shifted or the unit changed, so a correct computation can still produce a wrong selection.
What to do instead
Estimate the reasonable size of the answer before computing, then compare the estimate with the chosen option and check that the unit in the option matches the unit requested.
Selecting the option that sounds most formal or most natural when read silently rather than the one that satisfies a specific grammar rule.
Silent reading does not reliably surface errors in subject-verb agreement, pronoun case, or modifier placement, and longer phrasing is perceived as more academic.
What to do instead
Name the rule the item appears to be testing, then test only that rule: isolate the subject and its verb, or remove the interrupting phrase, and re-read.
Choosing a revision that fixes the grammar but deletes or changes information from the original sentence.
On revision-in-context items students optimize for correctness and overlook the requirement to preserve meaning and match the stated purpose of the writing.
What to do instead
Compare the original and the revision for information loss or added claims, then confirm the revision serves the stated goal such as clarity, conciseness, or tone.
Spelling unstressed syllables and homophones by sound, producing forms such as 'definately', 'seperate', or the wrong 'their/there/they're'.
Vowel sounds in unstressed syllables reduce to a schwa, so sound-based spelling gives no reliable cue to -able/-ible, -ance/-ence, or -er/-or endings.
What to do instead
Derive the spelling from a related word family (define, definite, definitely) and insert homophone choices into the sentence to test which grammatical role is needed.
Adding suffixes without applying consonant-doubling or silent-e rules, writing 'stoping' for 'stopping' or 'hoping' when 'hopping' is meant.
The rules depend on syllable stress and vowel patterns that are applied inconsistently when writing quickly, and the incorrect form still looks plausible.
What to do instead
For doubling, check whether the base word ends in a single vowel plus a single consonant with the stress on the final syllable; for silent-e bases, drop the e before a vowel suffix and keep it before a consonant suffix.