If you need lots of small posters out of sight during a test, rather than remove them individually, just grab a long sheet of bulletin board paper from the teacher room and fasten it to the wall with masking tape. It’s easy to put up and take down.

Want to give students a subtle way to let you know they are finished? Train them to place their pencil on the corner of their privacy folders like this. It’s much less distracting to those still working than waving their paper in the air.

If privacy folders still aren’t cutting down on the temptation to peek at what the person next to them is doing, have students sit on alternate sides of their tables or desks during tests.

If teaching younger students who struggle to fill out those bubbles, have them complete the back side of the form (or do it yourself) the Friday before testing week. Don’t wait until right before starting the test to fill them in. In addition to taking too much time, it can leave students stressed when you need them calm.

If your students are prone to filling in bubbles, then erasing and changing answers, have them save their erasers by writing their answers on a separate sheet and then adding them all at once at the end of their time. Just be sure to give them a head’s up when it’s getting close to the end. This is also very helpful for students who get confused by constantly going back and forth between their test booklet and answer sheet.

If students are taking a test over several days and tucking their answer sheet inside of their test booklets, use sticky notes to keep track of whose is whose, so you don’t have to keep opening them up to check.

Peruse through your teacher copy and schedule as soon as they’re provided to you. Use sticky notes to keep track of which pages you’ll do at which times of which days. This is especially helpful if your schedule has you jumping around through different parts of the book.