Testing Times – How to Beat Stress During Exams

Sarah Scrafford has very kindly submitted this post to Brain Milk to discuss how to control that exam beast, stress. Thanks very much Sarah; here you go ladies and gents:

No matter how many lessons you take, how much advice you receive, and how well you’ve studied, stress and exams are a pair that go hand in hand. One is never seen without the other. While a small amount of tension is needed to boost your adrenaline and make you want to do your best, you have to be careful of letting panic take over and making a mess of all the good work you’ve done over the year. So if you’re looking for ways to stay calm and collected when you’re preparing for or writing an exam, here’s what you need to do:

Study throughout the year: No amount of cramming a week or even a month before the exams will prepare you as well as a slow but steady process of studying throughout the year. Most of us have the tendency to study only when exam dates loom large, but if we were to adopt a routine of setting our own test schedules as and when each lesson is completed, you’ll find that preparing for your finals at the end of a term is a breeze.

Understand your lectures: If you don’t understand what you’re supposed to learn, you’re facing an uphill climb when you attempt to recollect the answers during an exam. Take the time to understand your lectures much before the exams. The ideal time would be a few days after your lecture’s over, the one that went over your head and seemed more of Greek and Latin to you. Seek the help of your classmates or your professors, much before your exams are due.

Set time limits: Whether you’re preparing for or writing your exams, you need to set time limits for finishing each portion. Set schedules for revising your topics, and when writing your exams, try and finish each question in the time you’ve set to answer it. This kind of forward planning helps you eliminate last-minute jitters and panic cramming (or writing), factors that don’t help your scores in the least.

Do things in the right order: You need to read the questions properly before you attempt to answer them and understand them properly. If you rush through your paper, there’s a high probability that you’re going to mix up your answers. When you think you don’t know an answer, take time to compose yourself and think back to your revision without freaking out. Panic is your worst enemy when you’re looking to score good marks.

Don’t discuss your answers: It’s not wise to rehash your exam and go over it question by question once you’re outside. If you realize that you’ve made a mistake, it’s going to weigh heavily on your mind and ruin your preparation for the next exam too. You can’t do anything about the answer you got wrong, but you certainly can avoid the stress of knowing you were wrong. So just focus on preparing for the next exam at hand, or if it’s your last paper, on relaxing and letting your hair down.

This article is contributed by Sarah Scrafford, who regularly writes on the topic of radiography technician schools. She invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address: sarah.scrafford25@gmail.com.

How to Work - Three

Quarta-Feira de Cinzas/Epilogue by filmmaker Cao Guimaraes and artist Rivane Neuenschwander. Following the Carnival, the colourful confetti become the ants' treasure and we can watch them as they go about their collective labour (a little help was needed to get them excited by soaking the paper in either pork-fat or honey). There is also some nice tinkling added to the soundtrack. Currently at the Tate Modern.

If an alien arrived on earth one of the first things it would note about our species was how much time we spent with each other. 'Humans are social creatures' it might jot down. Perhaps if our alien had been observing the majority of students doing their revision it would have added to that, "...except when revising."

But it shouldn't have to be this way.

Of course, you get the degree from your own work, you sit the exams by yourself and you need to do the thinking for yourself. I am not trampling on this idea. What's silly is when there is much to be gained, academically and emotionally, from including within your revision a perfectly legitimate social element.

What does this mean? It means chatting. It means spending lots of your revision hours chewing over the academic cud with other people. You'll be surprised at how digestible material is afterwards.

However, to do this, a lot of you will need to shake off the intense privacy with which you guard your ideas. Generally speaking, there is more to be gained from discussion than there is to be lost. And besides, you can keep the really original and creative cards close to your chest. But, I'd bet you'll find yourself with way more of those type of cards if you discuss material frequently and fervently with course mates.

I didn't do this in second year very much. Revision was lonely and painful. I did it in third year with the co-authors of the 'revision bible' and other lots of people on the course and revision suddenly got a whole lot better, and, dare I say it, at times enjoyable. Yeah, enjoyable.

I estimate that I reduced my 'sit-down revision time' by 30% by ironing out the creases in understanding over a beer, meal or walk on the Downs. What can take you 20 minutes in the library, takes you 20 seconds in a group to understand. Also, things seems to stick to memory more easily when they are spoken compared to when they are read. So, there are academic reasons for doing this.

Rather nicely, this idea has very recently been supported in the literature. In February, a paper published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that social interaction (as little as 10 minutes) improved intellectual performance.

In related stuff, more social contact is correlated with well-being (Sinha & Verma, 1990; Triandis et al., 1986); its absence is marked by depression (Gladstone, Parker, Malhi, & Wilhelm, 2007). Doing stuff together is better for the psyche.

In groups of friends, discussing things will probably occur organically. This post isn't really for that group. However, there will be lots of you who are doing this alone. This is for you then: You'll understand and remember more - and be happier, which counts for a lot - when you exploit your brain's natural affinity with social intercourse. Go and chat a psychologist up...

How to Work - Two

margolove @ Flickr

In How to Work - One we cleaned the road of distractions. In this post, I'll talk about getting the best mileage.

I tried to have a look around to find something in the literature on concentration span, an optimal time, something like that. I cant find anything. Sorry. Then again there probably isn't an optimal one because it's gonna depend on you and the task at hand.

But I do have some advice on concentration. Instead of working to a time, work to a goal. Set yourself the task of doing 'up to this point in this topic', then take your break.

The advantages of doing this over heading out of the library for a break constantly are twofold. First, you will get more done. Continuous breaks can be unnecessary and costly in terms of time.

Secondly, you can make your dopamine system do its funky dance by setting it up to expect the reward of a break and then giving it that reward after you have achieved your goals. You can be both Pavlov and the dog.

When you do this you will flood yourself with a satisfying little boost as opposed to being in that constant state of unfinished business, which comes with taking timed breaks. I think this is vital for keeping the spirits up during tough times, as well as reinforcing you to keep on working.

In a geekier moment, I did test this out. I spent two days working in 45 minute slots, taking 15 minute breaks, and two days just working to goals. Of course my quasi-experiment is horribly subjective and open to expectancy effects, but I did feel I got more done and enjoyed things more when working to goal.

If your concentration is still dragging:

• drink water;
• have peppermint;
• cool down (e.g., Fine & Kobrick, 1978; Gafafer, 1974), for complex tasks especially heat seems to have a bad effect, (e.g., Carlson, 1961);
• get some more sleep (I'll probably do a whole post on sleep at some point);
• keep your blood sugar levels up with complex carbs (Scholey et al, 2001; Hoyland et al, 2008) not short-lived rubbish (I'll probably do a whole post on eating at some point);
• cut out crap (stuff with additives) from your diet (Although this study is with children, additives in their diet did concentration a big disservice);
• add stuff into your diet, including magnesium, B-complex vitamins (folic acid and choline), omega 3 fatty acids and zinc, all of which have been shown to maintain a good attention span;
  
• meditate - work at the University of Kentucky has shown there are psychomotor benefits to dabbling in a bit of brief meditation;
• if you know of any more add them in as comments below...
  

How to Work - One

A few of you have asked questions about effective ways to work. So I am starting a series of posts on that subject.

We start with the Milk Desk (pictured), which takes the increasingly ubiquitous Jonathan Ive approach to design and deploys it in a desk. Quite a beauty isn't it? See the slick website here.

The thing about the desk is that it is totally devoid of distractions and this is the first rule of how to work.

Turn the phone off and close Facebook. Put away your magazines and gadgets. Hide the biscuits and finish the tea. Be ruthlessly brutal in dispensing with things you know might distract you.

If your need for Internet distractions is close to pathological (like mine), try blocking web pages you know you might want to visit (Facebook, Gmail, BBC News, etc) using this.

Do what needs to be done to achieve minimalist basics. This is because distractions mean interruption. And interruption is a kick in the cognitive nuts. Interruptions mean you’ll take longer to get back to where you were and you’ll also make more mistakes doing so. (See my other blog for a more extensive article on interruption or have fun with this beast.)

Not only is interruption the hand that knocks all your papers out your hand, it is also is bad for memory formation, which is clearly bad news during revision. In Modulation of competing memory systems by distraction, a paper in PNAS, the authors report that multi-tasking adversely affects how you learn. The more complex the topic, the more attention it needs and the more memory suffers if you split your attention doing other things. See this article for a summary of the paper.

You might think distractions lubricate the painful and unnatural process of revision, but in reality they are just diluting its potency and augmenting it duration. Be strict with yourself; work more intensely and you'll work less.