Handling Exam Stress: 5 Great Tips from My Father
I remember doing an exam once. The questions had all looked like they had come from a book on Mars. Everybody around me seemed to know what they were doing. My pen seemed stuck to the paper, while everybody else’s was writing stuff.
I came out of the exam hall in a flood of tears, absolutely distraught, and being comforted on either side by well meaning friends! What a drama queen I could be.
I will tell you what happened later.
It has been a few good years since that time. I remember my very last exam at uni. I can tell you, I dragged in one very, very long, very contented breath (you are beginning to get the picture right?). I was absolutely overjoyed that I had finally kissed goodbye to one of life stresses, called examinations. I have since done a few professional exams however. No, getting out of exams!
So while all of us have to face this exam thing, those in schools and uni more than others, here are some of my tips that were handed over to me from my dad from an early age.
Dad went through the whole educational system right up to PhD and his tips always and still help me, yes even at the Mars exam!
##1 Pace yourself
It is easy to get very stressed when we have left everything till the last day. The panic buttons are fully depressed when you see the pages you have not read yet and when you realise there are a few things you did not understand.
Set study goals. Look at the syllabus and devise a plan that paces how much you will cover everything or as much as possible, in the lead up to the exam.
Dad used to say, never leave it all till the day before. Point taken!
##2 Have a study group
Dad would encourage us to get into a study group. That meant in the lead up to the exams get a group of friends together that you want to revise with. Now, these friends better be on the same page as you. You don’t want distracting, negative or discouraging friends. Or friends that want to do anything but study.
The purpose of the group is for knowledge share. No one knows everything. Besides someone may have a quick understanding or better understanding of a topic than another. Someone may have devised an easy way of understanding or remembering some topic. In a group, hanging heads together puts all these into practice.
Two heads are after all are better than one.
##3 Double check times and place of exam
Mum and dad would have a copy of our exam timetable. That accountability was also a reminder for us so we were well aware we were studying the right subject at the right time. Often exams are over a period of time and may be one after another, even two in one day!
A friend once told me how she missed an exam. She knew the day of the exam but thought the time was 2 pm instead of 12 pm. Well you can guess what that wrong timing cost her; she was not allowed to take the exam. Some examination regulations are such that if you are more than half hour late you can’t take the exam.
This leads to the next point. Dad would also make a note of which place and exam hall which exam was being taken. Have these things posted where you can see them, e.g. The fridge door, your mobile phone reminders, and/or ask a friend to remind you.
And remember to allow for delays. There may a train delay on that day. That would make you even more stressed before you have taken the exam. Get there on time. You don’t want to more worked up before the exam.
##4 Get a good night’s sleep
Dad always used to make sure us kids were in bed by 10 pm the night before our exam. No matter the exam, he firmly believed in a good night’s rest.
Dad once told us a story of someone who had stayed up all night swotting for his exams. Only for the next day to get to the exams and find he was tired physically and mentally to do the exam well. The swot’s brain had gone foggy!
Know when to call it quits. Don’t be up till 4 am in the morning for an examination that is taking place at 9 am. As my dad would say, the night before an exam is to revise what you already know. If you don’t understand the subject by then, you are only going to stress out more. That is why point 1 is important. Pace yourself.
It is better to turn up for the exam and answer the questions you know, than answer the questions poorly like Mr. Swot. After all, what you may be trying to cram at that time, may not even come up.
Dad would encourage us to even watch a movie or do something that would help us relax.
Avoid exam post-mortem. It is not the multitude of people that determines the right answer.
##5 Avoid a post exam post-mortem
Dad used to discourage us from this. He would tell us, do not discuss what you have written in the exam afterwards. There is not much you can do afterwards. And this is so very important, if you have other exams afterwards. Thinking you have not done well, may make you feel discouraged and that would affect your other exams.
And who says your friends are right anyway? If 100 people say 1 + 1 = 3, that does not make it right, does it? It is not the multitude of people that determines the right answer.
And also don’t go checking the answer in your books or notes. Again you may not remember precisely how the question was asked. Avoid the temptation at all costs!
That day I was carried away by friends I had an exam the next day. I had done a post-mortem, in addition to finding the exams hard leaving me feeling worse. I was almost becoming a wreck!
## 6 And here is my tip…Pray
My mother would pray over us every time we were going for an exam. It is amazing how many Eureka moments I had in an exam, things suddenly making sense. How many things came flooding back to me too when I would sit in an exam and say a silent prayer.
As a Christian it is your right to ‘ask God for help’, so why not exercise your right? What do you have to lose?
Ben Carson’s book, Gifted Hands, shares how he challenged God “Either help me understand what kind of work I ought to do, or else perform some kind of miracle and help me to pass this exam”, he said. In a strange dream that night, he found himself taking notes given by a shadowy figure. On getting to the exam, the notes he had been taking were identical to those now being asked in the exam.
Well back to my Mars exam. Guess what, I surprisingly passed. And quite well too. I was to find out that those who had been flying with their pens admitted that in truth, they were just writing for the sake of it. I was one of the top in that exam too. It is important to be focused therefore. Concentrate on you and don’t look at what others are doing.
Just take it all in your stride. And like me you may surprise yourself and find that the questions were not all about Mars after all!
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