Examination has been proved for years as one of the key roles to promotion. Whenever promotion drawns near examination serves as the lifter of scaling new height irrespective of who you are, where you come from or stay. If you can still remember in the bible. When Jacob intended to get married to Laban’s daughter Rachael, he was told to serve for seven years, do you know after serving for seven years his labour was in vain, and he was asked to serve for another seven years making it fourteen years before passing the exams. There is a popular saying nothing worthwhile ever comes easy and every value is measured on cost. So, until challenges or exams come, you never know what you are worth.
The term examination is one of the escape root to success therefore, if there must be a success there must be exam. Now, what is exams? Is a formal test of knowledge or ability.
It is a formal text of knowledge or ability to higher text. I know you are surprise, that is not far fetched. Without a coordinated exam there would be no awarded degree, sometimes examination result show you how much you are worth.
So, anxiety is a relatively permanent state of worry and nervousness occurring in a variety of mental disorders, usually accompanied by compulsive behaviour or attacks of panic. Exam anxiety is when a student excessively worries about doing well on examination. This can become a major hindrance on exam promotion performance and cause extreme nervousness and memory lapses among other symptoms.
We have all heard about students who get so anxious about exams that they can’t function normally, some get cold sweats, some get dizzy and faint, some become nauseous. Extreme anxiety can be a tremendous problem.
But do you know that virtually all students experience some degree of anxiety or stress at exam time and that any level of anxiety can negatively affect your performance in an exam. Addressing anxiety is a major success strategy for all students.
A Familiar Scenario
Have you ever felt like you studied well enough for an exam only to take the exam and discover you couldn’t remember much? See if this scenario sounds familiar.
It’s a multiple choice exam. Marina knows she needs to do well on this if she has any hope of getting the grade she wants for this class. She has gotten through the first few questions okay, but she’s running into a little trouble. All the answers looks familiar but she can’t quite remember anything in enough details to be sure. She skips a couple of questions and aims for one that looks doable. She narrows the answer down to two possibilities, but can’t settle on one. She tries re-reading but it seems to get harder to even focus.
The clock is ticking, some students get up to turn in their question paper and leave. Marina tries to calm down, but it seems the more she tries the harder it becomes. She feels upset because when she re-viewed this last night, she felt like she knew it. Now she can’t seem to remember anything, marina gets through the papers, it’s not terrible but she knows she could have done a lot better. By evening, in fact she remembered answers to several of the questions she knows she got wronged.
Marina realizes that she is having difficulty recalling information she tries harder to think, but it seems like the harder she tries the harder becomes to remember. Most exam anxiety comes from two often related sources: Insufficient study and a pressure to do well.
To reduce the change that anxiety will throw you off course, strict to this simple three-part plan, in my own point of view this three-part plan is a sure bet to reduce examination anxiety.
Before Examination Day
(a) Study more – A lot more as it may seem obvious but insufficient study time is the biggest underlying problem for students who suffers from anxiety. This simple fact is that most students who struggle with exams have not studied enough. The solution is simply to learn your materials so well that you can easily recall it even under difficult conditions.
(b) Practice positive thinking – The desire to avoid failure is a very poor motivator. To prime yourself for success, you must learn to banish negative thoughts. Instead of thinking “I have to do well on this exam to lift my grade from the last one, think “I will do well on this exam because I studied as much as I can and because I know what I need to do to be successful.”
(2) On The Examination Day
(a) Don’t study – If you have studied well before hand, you shouldn’t need to study on test day. A nice review would be help face to jog your memory, but you are probably not going to learn a lot of new stuff on the day of an exam. It will only end up making you full more anxious by worrying that you are not ready.
(b) Prime your brain – Be very thoughtful about what you eat and drink, what medicines you take, etc. For example, if you eat too close to an exam you body may focus more energy on digestion than on thinking. But being hungry won’t help you either. Eat something healthy one or two hours before your exam.
(3) During The Test
(a) Remind yourself that it’s only a game – Remember exam doesn’t cause anxiety. The anxiety is your creation and you can control it. They regarding your exam as a puzzle, therefore your amusement only. Sure, you are trying to score points but it’s only because winning the game is more fun than losing.
(b) Don’t stay stuck in the mud – Don’t let yourself struggle with a question, give yourself though time on it to try to jog your memory, but then move on to the next one. Remind yourself that even as you answer other questions, your brain is still searching for the answer to the one you skipped. Answering other question while waiting may just help jog your memory.
In conclusion, the best way to fight exam anxiety is to study well, having a positive attitude and whenever you get into an examination hall, allow yourself few minutes to relax your brain before starting your exams. This can also help fight against examination anxiety.
