TABE common mistakes
TABE · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Selects the answer that matches the student's own life experience or personal opinion instead of the one the passage supports, then moves on without checking the text.
Adult learners bring decades of real-world knowledge and read for meaning rather than for evidence, so a plausible-sounding option feels correct even when the passage says something narrower or different.
What to do instead
Require a 'proof line' before marking any answer: the student physically points to or writes the line number in the passage that makes the choice true. If no line can be found, the option is wrong regardless of how sensible it sounds. Do 10 short passages practicing only this step, no answer selection.
Picks the first sentence of the passage, or a vivid supporting detail, as the main idea, and picks options containing absolutes like 'always', 'all', or 'never'.
Students were often taught 'the topic sentence is first', and details are easier to remember than the overall point; extreme-sounding options feel more important than moderate ones.
What to do instead
Apply a two-part test to each main-idea option: (1) the scope test - does the whole passage support it, or only one paragraph? (2) the breadth test - is it too narrow (a detail) or too broad (a topic, not the author's point)? Sort 8 candidate sentences into 'detail / topic / main idea' columns before choosing.
Chooses the most common everyday meaning of a vocabulary word in context (e.g., 'table' as furniture in an article about data) instead of the meaning that fits the sentence.
Students retrieve the strongest, most frequent memory of the word and stop there; they do not reread the surrounding sentence because they believe they already know the word.
What to do instead
Use the substitution test: plug each answer choice into the original sentence and reread the full sentence aloud. Eliminate any choice that makes the sentence nonsensical or grammatically odd. Practice with 15 short sentences using familiar words in less familiar senses (bank, charge, matter, figure).
Works an arithmetic expression strictly left to right, computing 3 + 4 × 2 as 14, or clears parentheses by distributing incorrectly in expressions like 2(3 + 5).
Reading direction is left to right, and most daily arithmetic is linear; order-of-operations rules are learned once and rarely reinforced, so they erode under time pressure.
What to do instead
Force a written planning step: before any calculation, copy the expression and mark the operation order with pencil numbers above each operator (1, 2, 3), then compute in that numbered order. Practice ten expressions per session with the numbering step mandatory until it becomes automatic.
Solves a multi-step word problem correctly but then selects an answer that reports an intermediate value, or uses only two of the three given numbers because the third seems irrelevant.
Under time pressure students stop reading at the numbers and choose an operation by keyword ('total' = add), and after doing real work they grab the first familiar-looking number in the choices.
What to do instead
Cover the answer choices until the work is done. Before computing, write one sentence in the form 'I need to find ___' and label every given quantity with its unit. After computing, reread the final question sentence and confirm the number found is the same thing that was asked for.
Applies a percent, fraction, or decimal without converting first - for example, multiplying by 0.15 instead of 15 for a 15% markup, or placing the decimal point one position off in a multiplication result.
Percent notation is treated as decoration rather than as division by 100, and students do not estimate, so a wildly wrong magnitude passes unnoticed.
What to do instead
Build a mandatory estimate-and-check habit: before computing, estimate the answer to the nearest round number ('15% of 60 is about 9'), then compute, then compare. Also require every percent to be rewritten as a decimal fraction on paper before it enters an equation.
Substitutes the diameter for the radius, computes perimeter when the problem asks for area (or vice versa), or multiplies quantities given in different units (e.g., 30 minutes and 2 hours) without converting.
Formulas are memorized as shapes rather than as meanings, and the units in a problem are read as labels rather than as quantities that must match.
What to do instead
Write the formula, then write the value being substituted next to each variable before computing (r = 4, not r = 8). Convert all units to one system in a separate step at the top of the work. Practice distinguishing area/perimeter by asking 'am I covering it or going around it?'
Judges sentence correctness by whether it 'sounds right', producing run-on sentences joined by commas and accepting fragments like 'Working late at the plant every night.' as complete sentences.
Conversational speech tolerates both fragments and comma splices, so the ear is a poor guide; students also equate length with completeness, and a long fragment sounds finished.
What to do instead
Enforce a grammatical check on every option: underline the subject once and the main verb twice. No verb, or a verb with no subject, means it is a fragment; two subject-verb pairs with only a comma between them means it is a run-on. Do 15 items where only the subject-verb marking is required, no answer choice.
Matches a verb to the nearest noun rather than to the actual subject ('The box of invoices were delivered'), and misses agreement errors when the subject follows the verb ('There is three reasons').
Proximity and sound drive the choice; intervening prepositional phrases crowd out the real subject, and inverted sentences hide it entirely.
What to do instead
Cross out every prepositional phrase between the subject and the verb, then reread the sentence with subject and verb adjacent. For inverted sentences, locate the verb first and ask 'what is doing this?' Practice with 12 sentences built specifically to place a plural noun next to a singular subject.
Confuses homophones and possessive forms - writing 'its' for 'it's', 'there' for 'their', or adding an apostrophe to a plural ('three invoice's').
Spell-check and autocorrect hide these errors in daily writing, and apostrophe-s is overgeneralized as 'the plural rule' rather than learned as possession or contraction.
What to do instead
Apply an expansion test on every apostrophe word: expand it in the sentence (it's = it is; they're = they are) and see whether it still makes sense; if not, use the no-apostrophe form. For plural nouns, test whether the sentence means 'more than one' (no apostrophe) or 'belonging to' (apostrophe). Drill 20 items of expansion and labeling only.