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.

Preventing stress

Naboo beats all the stress management techniques out there with the kitten in a barrel routine

It's highly likely that you're going to feel some stress in the coming weeks. A little is good: it sharpens your thinking and fuels your motivation; but too much is bad.

Not is it only bad for all the malaise it causes but it damages your working memory (e.g., Morgan et al., 2006), which you need to think and solve problems with, and your ability to solidify long-term memories (e.g., Chen et al., 2008), which you obviously need to remember course content. Also, "[y]our IQ plummets. Your creativity, your sense of humor — all of that disappears. You're stupid." according to psychiatrist Edward Hallowell author of CrazyBusy. You may not need a sense of humour to write psychology essays (but it's probably a good thing to have to get through the revision process) but you'll want your creativity firing otherwise those top marks are out of reach.

Now there's lots out there on ameliorating stress. I might do a series of posts on a couple of things later. But for now I think it's better to think about what causes it. When it comes to exams, stress is the distance between where you are and where you want to be.

If you want a First, there are three weeks to exams and you haven't done a drop of revision, your stress level is going to be monstrous. If you don't care what you get, there are three weeks to exams and you haven't done a drop of revision, your stress level is going to fairly low.

Unfortunately, once the gap gets wide enough it'll start growing all by itself because stress deleteriously (ooh get me!) affects thinking and memory, precisely those things you need to narrow the gap. It's a nasty place to be.

To keep this distance to a minimum, you could always cut what you want your degree classification to be - but this is only a strategy for loafers. The alternative is to i) give yourself loads of time (i.e. start now), ii) draw up a good timetable so you can monitor and manage the 'stress distance' and iii) share out some of the immense requisite research.

This may sound achingly obvious but the obvious remains in the theoretical realm for some people until it is too late. There will be people (re)reading this post in a month's time and kicking themselves. Don't be one of them.