No matter the subject or skill supposedly being tested, at its heart every test is first and foremost a test in how to take a test.  The first step in mastering any test is to think of it not as an evaluation of your intelligence, or of your worth as a person, or even of your skill level in a particular field, but rather as a game or sport — and one in which you are playing against a human opponent.

That opponent, of course, is the person who wrote the test.

You will not be able to see this person — he or she will not be standing or sitting across the court or table from you as in a game of tennis or chess — but the indisputable fact remains that this person does indeed exist.  The test did not simply drop out of the sky.  It was constructed by a human being who has a strategy for beating you (i.e., tricking you into getting a certain number of questions wrong), just as the offense would have a strategy — a "play" — designed to deceive the defense in football, basketball, or soccer.

And just as the mounting of an effective defense obliges you to ask "What would we do in this situation, if we were the team in possession of the ball?", obtaining an excellent score on a standardized test obliges you not only to study the relevant subject matter, but to learn to think like the person who wrote the questions.