When to guess, and why a blank is always the worse choice

Start with the honest version of the answer, because most sites state this more confidently than the documents support.

What we can and cannot verify about the penalty

We hold Rule 6A-4.0021, the competencies document the rule incorporates, FLDOE's Test Structure document and the maximum-percentages table. Read all four and no sentence anywhere describes a deduction for a wrong answer.

What is stated positively is the passing standard, and the way it is stated is informative. FLDOE publishes what a scaled score of 200 is worth as a maximum percentage of correct answers: at most 63% for English Language Skills, at most 70% for Reading, at most 63% for Mathematics. Percentage of correct answers. Not correct minus wrong.

So our reading is that a blank and a wrong answer score the same, and a guess is free. That is a reading of the documents rather than a policy anyone published, and it is the kind of distinction we would rather flag than smooth over.

The arithmetic of eliminating

Our items use four options, which is the ordinary shape for a test like this. FLDOE's documents that we hold do not state an option count, so treat the odds below as applying to a four-option item.

The middle row is where the marks are. Getting from one in four to one in two is usually a matter of applying one rule you know, and it doubles the value of the item. Getting from one in two to certain often requires knowledge you do not have, and it can eat three minutes proving that.

How many you can afford to miss

Worth knowing before you sit, because it changes how a hard item feels.

That arithmetic is ours, from FLDOE's published maximum percentages, and the percentages are maximums rather than fixed thresholds - a harder version can pass on fewer correct, which means the room to miss may be slightly larger than the table says. Never smaller.

You can get thirteen Mathematics items wrong and pass. Read that again if mathematics is the subtest you are dreading, because the number of candidates who talk themselves out of sitting it is larger than the number who actually cannot clear it.

When to guess and move

• In English Language Skills, whenever two options both sound right and you cannot name the rule that separates them. The ear will not settle it on a fourth reading, and eighty seconds an item does not fund a fifth
• In Reading, whenever you have gone back to the passage twice for the same item
• In Mathematics, whenever your working has stalled for more than about a minute with no route visible. Estimate the size of the answer, take the closest option and move
• Anywhere, at the point where finishing the subtest is in doubt. An unanswered item at the end of the paper is a mark you gave away for nothing

Flag, but expect not to come back

Always enter an answer before you flag an item. The habit of leaving it blank and intending to return is how candidates end a subtest with four empty items and no time, and every one of those is a free one-in-four they declined.

Reviewing flagged items is a real option in Mathematics, where 2.86 minutes an item leaves genuine slack. It is close to fictional in English Language Skills. Plan accordingly: in the tight subtest, your first answer is usually your only answer, so make it a considered guess rather than a placeholder.

The essay is not a guessing problem

Nothing here applies to the essay subtest. It is a written response to a prompt, scored holistically by at least two raters whose scores are summed to a passing total of 6. There is no option list, no partial credit in the multiple-choice sense, and no equivalent of a blank other than not writing. We teach that subtest in a chapter of its own and we do not mark essays.