Is test anxiety destructive. Can we make test anxiety work for us The answer to both of these questions is yes. Test anxiety often interferes with student performance but this same test anxiety, if channeled correctly, can help improve performance.
In order to lessen the destructive elements of test anxiety, the approach should be to develop improved confidence and knowledge. As your knowledge of the course material increases, your confidence in your ability to succeed will increase. As your confidence increases, your anxiety will go down, allowing your knowledge to come through more efficiently. The way you prepare for a test can reduce anxiety during the test.
You will be surprised how confident you will feel if you know the material. Studies of memory show if you want to be able to recall information from text or lecture you have to review that material several times. It is important to know your own abilities and operate accordingly. If you know that you learn best by listening, prepare a tape of significant material and listen to the tape.
Study partners or study groups are often useful for self-testing. Experience in stressful situations tends to lessen anxiety in those situations. One way to help yourself retrieve material is through the use of mnemonic codes. Learn a code that lets you remember complex material. Developing an outline for an essay question that you know will be on the test or memorizing a formula are forms of code development.
Students are often frustrated by the sheer volume of material that has to be studied in college. Many instructors conduct reviews, give hints, identify what is important to study, use handouts or overhead transparency outlines. These materials should be at the top of your study list. If the instructor took the time to identify them, you should assume that they will play an important part of the test. While knowledge acquired during test preparation can help reduce anxiety, it is another thing to take the test itself. Following are a few suggestions to help reduce anxiety during the test.
When I arrive at a test, I often find students flipping text pages at the last minute trying to cram it all in at the end. You would be better off trying to relax, meditating a little, and clearing your mind to allow yourself the ability to concentrate on the questions that are coming.
As soon as the instructor gives you the signal to start, dump out formulas, codes, outlines from your memory onto the test answer sheets so that you will not have to worry about whether you will remember the codes long enough until you get to the appropriate test question.
You can build your confidence if you go through the test and answer all of the questions that you know first. Go back and work on those questions that need greater analysis, or that need to be worked out or need to be guessed at and your anxiety will not kick in until later in the test.
For those of you whose anxiety increases as study and preparation increase, your goal should be to start concentrating on things that take your mind off the test, i. e. , television, books, hobbies, movies, etc. Meditation and aerobic exercise have proven to be very useful methods for reducing undesirable effects of stress.
The solution to reducing the destructive influences of stress is to plan to study. Map out a schedule of when you will study each day. Identify the specific topics that you will study each day. Identify the areas of the material that you have had problems with and study those. Your plan should include reading the text material, reviewing notes and homework assignments, identifying material that needs further explanation, developing codes for memory material and testing yourself. Once you have studied adequately, your confidence will be fairly high, your knowledge will be satisfactory to do well on the test and the stomach butterflies will help you focus on the task at hand.
I’d wish you good luck on finals, but you and I both know that the more effectively you study, the luckier you will get.
What should be at the top of your study list when you prepare a test
A．The most complex materials.
B．The questions asked by students.
C．The materials reviewed and hints given by the teacher.
D．The materials mastered by most students.
