Most students experience difficult test questions during some point of their academic careers. There are several ways that you can break questions down and make them simpler and easier to answer with the knowledge you have available. Show
Strategy Suggestions Attack unfamiliar words by sounding them out, by breaking them into familiar parts with meanings you know, and by looking at the surrounding words and sentences for clues to the meaning of the word. Use your general knowledge. Ask yourself, "What do I already know about ____________"? Anticipate the answer to the question you’ve just read and look for the one most like what you expect. Be flexible. You may not always find exactly the choice you are looking for. Then, you must choose the best of the options available. Use logical reasoning. For each possible answer, ask yourself, "What would happen if… "? Use the process of elimination for multiple-choice questions where more than one option is correct:
Look for test-wiseness cues if the other strategies don't work. If you guess at an answer, check your guess against what you already know and against what your logical reasoning tells you. Adapted from Kentucky State University Reading Lab
“ - [Interviewer] I'm thinking one situation that is kind of spooky for people is they get a question, they don't know the answer. Ah! What are your tips for handling that situation? - [Interviwee] Well, the first thing is don't fake it because if somebody in the room knows the answer, you will lose all credibility. Nobody knows everything so you can acknowledge it and you can say something like, "I'm not 100% sure of that, but let me get back to you." And most people will accept that. Another option you have is, if you're in a meeting or an organization and you have a subject matter expert on that, you could deflect it and say, "I'm not 100%sure, but let me turn it over to Pete, 'cause he's really the expert in that." The only downside to that is, number one, you have to make sure that he really, or she really is the expert. And then what happens is, you lose control 'cause the two of them can have a Tete-a-tete. So…
Watch courses on your mobile device without an internet connection. Download courses using your iOS or Android LinkedIn Learning app. The Q&A is the most nerve-racking part of the already stressful experience of standing up in front of an audience and presenting, and the worst part of that is getting difficult questions. However, there are several tactics which can help with dealing with tricky questions smoothly:
After that, you will probably want to check if your answer is okay or offer to answer another way, and finally thank the audience for the (difficult) questions. This article gives tips and phrases for each of those steps, in that order. For practice of this and other parts of the presentation opening, body and ending, see https://www.usingenglish.com/e-books/teaching-presentation-skills/ Filling silence in the presentation Q&AFilling silence by checking the questionPerhaps the least stressful situation for the presenter is being able to send the question back to the audience member as they check the meaning of the question/ what the questioner wants to know. If you have some idea what the question is, the best questions are those which explain your understanding to the questioner and double-check it, such as:
As long as you don’t use this too much in one Q&A session, this can also be a good tactic for delaying your answer, even when you are 99% sure what the question means. If you have more problems understanding what the question is, it’s best to avoid generally phrases like “Pardon?” and “Sorry, I didn’t catch that” as much as possible and instead be specific about what the problem is, with questions like:
The parts in brackets above are optional, but good for further filling time if you need time to think. When the questioner has confirmed, repeated and/ or explained the meaning of their question, you can then use perhaps the simplest and most useful tactic for filling silence before answering, which is commenting on the question. However, you should avoid repeating the same phrases and make sure that the comment really matches the question, so you’ll need a range of different phrases for this. The simplest commenting on the question phrases follow the pattern “(That’s a/ an) … question”, as in:
Similar comments on the question include:
Another easy pattern is “I’m (so/ really) … that you asked me that”, as in:
A similar but also kind of opposite phrase is the jokey one “(Wow!) I was hoping no one would ask me that!” You can also comment on how common/ likely such a question is with:
You can also kind of apologise, in comments like:
The parts in brackets above are again useful for filling time/ silence, with these starters being particularly useful:
Politely asking people to wait in presentation Q&A sessionsThe most direct way of filling silence is asking people to wait. The most common and easiest to use phrases are “Just a… while…” and “Just a…, I’m …ing (…)”, as in:
Expressions with verbs in the imperative like “Wait…” are less generally useful as they can sound like commands, but there are some which are quite common:
A pattern which is generally more polite is phrases starting with “If” like:
As long as you avoid repeating, it’s possible to string the expressions above together to fill all the time necessary for you to think of a good answer, as in:
Asking questions to yourself in the Q&AAnother obvious tactic for filling time, and one that goes perfectly after “Let me see” in the string of asking people to wait phrases above, is asking yourself a question, as in:
Answering Q&A questions while still thinking/ before deciding what to sayAfter or instead of directly asking people to wait, you can also use phrases which seem to be the start of the answer but are in fact also there just to fill time, as in:
Mentioning what you said earlierThis is similar to the tip above, in that it looks like a part of the answer but is just as useful for filling time while the presenter is thinking. These phrases often start with “As”, as in:
“Remember” is another useful key word, as in:
Finally, there are phrases which include words linking two things together like “related”, as in:
Showing how unsure your answer isThese kinds of phrases can also be used to extend your answers and so give yourself thinking time. However, the main purposes are to show the questioner how confident they can be in your answer and so to cover yourself if it turns out that your answer is not 100% accurate. This often starts with a reason why your answer cannot be completely relied upon, as in:
Then comes the phrase saying how sure or unsure you are. These include, in approximate order of certainty:
Politely not answering questions in presentationsIn some situations, the reasons given above for unsure answers can instead be reasons for not answering questions at all, for example if you are a researcher who doesn’t want to speculate on things outside your own area or if it isn’t a good idea to speak on company matters related to other departments. Other reasons for not answering include confidentiality, that topic is coming up later anyway, nothing coming to mind, and one questioner dominating the Q&A. Suitable first words for politely not answering include:
You might sometimes then want to politely but directly say that you can’t answer, as in:
After or instead of directly saying that you can’t answer, you will need to give a reason for not answering the question, as in:
Offering to answer the question another wayIf you don’t want not answering the question to be too negative for the audience, you should usually then offer to answer the question another way. Such offers could include emailing the questioner, answering by email if the questioner emails you, speaking face to face after the presentation, getting someone else to answer it, and allowing them to ask again later in the presentation. Typical phrases for offering to answer Q&A questions another way include:
Much less commonly, you can also occasionally answer about something close to but not the same as the topic of the question, with phrases like:
Checking if your answer was okayIf you did manage to answer their question (however inadequately), you should then check if your answer is okay. This is usually best done with Yes/ No questions like:
If you are too scared that such a question could lead to a negative answer and/ or another difficult question, you can make a statement that has a similar function like:
Unless you really want to have more difficult questions, I’d suggest avoiding negative questions like “…or wasn’t that what you wanted to know?” and “… or not?” Thanking the audience for difficult questions at the end“Thanks for your difficult question” is a rather strange way to finish a Q&A and/ or the whole presentation, but you can use similar phrases like “Thanks for all your great questions. It will give me a lot to mull on when I get home tonight” and “Thanks for all your really thought-provoking questions. They’ve given me several ideas for possible future presentation topics!” |