Abstract
This study attempted to investigate the effect of test-taking strategy training on Iranian students’ performance on English section of the National University Entrance Examination (NUEE). To do so, 160 fourth grade high school students were randomly assigned to the control and experimental groups. The experimental group received 8 hours of test-taking strategy training along with samples of the NUEE exams, while control group only practiced the samples of the NUEE exams without being imposed to these strategies. Participant’s performance on school exams which were very similar to the NUEE English section was also measured through a multiple-choice test which was used as the pre and post-test. Results revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in both high stake test of NUEE and the post-test. Moreover, there was a positive relationship between the participants’ general point average (GPA) in their school final exams and their test taking strategy use. The findings provide empirical support for encouraging language teachers to instruct test-taking strategies in language classes, especially the strategies which help students in stressful exams like NUEE.