Tutoring For All Ages

Now that we’ve talked about the basics of test anxiety and how important it is to “think positive” and just breathe, it’s time to tie it all together with a tip to help make it all work, plus a little icing on the cake: (more…)

Continuing our series on dealing with test anxiety, this article is all about the things that seem most obvious.

• Breathe. People who have test anxiety often forget the basics. They don’t eat right, they don’t exercise, they don’t sleep well. Sometimes they even unconsciously hold their breath for long periods during a test. Yes, that could be you, despite the fact that you don’t think you ever hold your breath during a test — that’s the definition of unconscious.

  Unfortunately, all of these things just exacerbate the problem. (more…)

Test anxiety, whether it relates to a standardized test or an open-ended, in-class test, is real. Some students who ask their doctors about test anxiety find that their anxiety stems from an undiagnosed medical or learning issue. In some ways (though certainly not all), they’re the lucky ones: they have a certified expert telling them that their troubles aren’t their fault, with test results to back up their findings and referrals to specialists to help them solve, or at least learn to work around, their issues.

Even if your doctor can’t find anything medically wrong, though, that doesn’t mean it’s your fault — at least, not exactly. In these situations, your mind controls your body, and your body controls your mind. Anxiety and panic from your mind produces adrenaline in your body, and adrenaline actually impairs your ability to think rationally. It’s no wonder you can’t think when you’re anxious during a test — your body thinks it’s in a fight-or-flight situation! So your brain borrows processing power from your cognitive abilities in order to increase abilities that your ancestors might have needed to survive, like strength and speed. Too bad it doesn’t know that what you really need right then is the ability to think on your feet so that you can take a test!

So, you have to teach your mind the right thing to do. The process of mind-body control goes both ways. You can use specific tools to either reverse this process and bring your mind back to its relaxed and rational state, or prevent the adrenaline from flowing in the first place: (more…)

The night before a recent SAT, I had a text-message conversation with a student that went something like this (translated from text-speak):

Me: Hey, just wanted to check in to make sure you’re feeling good and are going to get a good night’s sleep! You’re going to rock it tomorrow!
Student: I just took a practice section and realized I don’t know any vocab and I suck at math.
Me: You had a practice section with both vocab *and* math?
Student: Okay, it was two sections. But oh my god, it’s hopeless, I have to stay up all night studying and I’m still going to fail!!! This always happens and then I fail the next day!
Me: Okay, take a deep breath. Inhale, exhale. You have worked hard and you *are* ready for this. Do you believe me?
Student: I know I’ve done a lot of work but I’m so afraid that I’m going to fail because I’m just bad at tests and then I won’t get in to college.
Me: Remember what we talked about? Breathe and be positive. Repeat this to yourself: I am ready and I can do this.
Student [5 minutes later]: Okay, done, but what do I do tonight?
Me: At this point, you usually stay up all night to cram?
Student: Yes.
Me: And then how do you do the next day?
Student: I usually get a really bad grade which sucks because I know the material when I’m not taking the test.
Me: So, staying up all night clearly doesn’t work. Let’s try something new. You up for it?
Student: Anything.
Me: Put your books away, set your alarm, get in bed, do some relaxation exercises, and go to sleep.
Student: LOL!
Me: Not kidding! Trust me, okay? Get some sleep! I promise you’ll feel better in the morning. Breathe and relax during the test and you’ll be fine.
Student: You’re really telling me to *not* study?
Me: I really am.
Student: Okay, I’ll try it, but I can’t promise that I’ll be able to sleep.

Yes, it’s true that this student hadn’t read my article on what to do (and what not to do) the night before a big test, but even if she had, it might not have helped her. Anxiety this severe is a vicious cycle. Each time this student panicked, crammed all night, then bombed a test, her anxiety before and during the next test was even worse, making another panic session even more likely.

Thankfully, my student did fall asleep after our conversation and also did well on the SAT, but her experience with test anxiety is, unfortunately, not unique. It doesn’t take much to set off a bout of test anxiety, and once it’s going, it’s hard to stop without specific strategies. But, with practice, it is possible to break the cycle. This will be the first of three articles describing ways to combat test anxiety. First things first:

• Don’t confuse test anxiety with being under-prepared. A lot of people get nervous before a test because they didn’t have enough time to study, or because they have not yet developed effective study habits. If that’s what you’re here to read about, be aware: I don’t consider that to be genuine test anxiety. That is a very rational fear of doing poorly on a test that you haven’t adequately prepared for. The way to calm those nerves is simple: study harder and/or study better. But if you feel irrational fear despite having amply studied, find that your mind still goes blank on the test despite knowing all the answers before and after it, and/or make many careless mistakes despite being well-prepared, the rest of these tools could be useful to you.
• See a doctor. First, I strongly recommend that anyone suffering from severe test anxiety see a licensed medical or mental health professional. Depending on your situation, you may be referred to a specialist for further testing. This is not just a legal disclaimer: I have had students whose test anxiety was rooted in an undiagnosed medical condition or learning disability. Once they were diagnosed, they were able to take steps to combat the underlying cause, and their test anxiety was greatly reduced.

Over the next week, I’ll describe various methods you can use to ease test anxiety and even prevent it altogether. But for now, if you suffer from test anxiety, take heart in the fact that you are not alone. Many others like you deal with the same thing, and the solutions they have found can help you, too.

When I was in college, I was introduced to the 90-minute lecture. From my perspective as a student, any single lecture started out as usual, with me taking notes and thinking about the material in equal measures. But, by the end of the lecture, it was a struggle just to pay enough attention to take useful notes (which I hoped I’d be able to understand later).

Unless, that is, the professor was kind enough to give us a break in the middle of class. That made all the difference; I retained far more information from and did better in those classes. It was in those classes that I really experienced the importance of taking breaks.

One of my professors justified the break schedule by explaining that the human attention span was 45 minutes. (These days it seems like it’s much shorter.) That made us all feel better. It wasn’t our fault that we couldn’t stay focused — it was a physiological response, built into our brains.

Given that an adolescent brain has a hard time paying attention to anything for even 20 or 30 minutes straight, it seems silly that so many tests are so much longer than that. The SAT breaks its test up into sections no more than 25 minutes long, but even that is too long for a lot of students at that age (and that’s completely normal). And, what about other tests? How do you combat mental fatigue when you’re on the hour-long ACT math section, or when you’re taking an in-class final exam?

Simple: take your own breaks.

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