How to relieve anxiety when taking Tests?

[Foamy the Fearsome]

While im normally calm and relaxed about everything, I too stress during exams when I know/feel I havent properly prepared, or when I see questions I cant handle. This is what I usually (plan to) do:

★★ Before the exam â˜…★
[depending on the kind of material you have to deal with of course; this is for most of my written exams where they dont just ask random facts]
★ Prepare properly (duh). For me that goes beyond reading the required literature. They dont ask me to cite pages of your textbook, they ask me to solve equations or to explain concepts and whatnot. So I must be able to do thát. I usually make practice exams (if available), or make the example excercises from lectures or from my book, check the answers and repeat. Make sure youve successfully produced a proper solution to any type of question you can get at least once.

★ Write summaries. beware that thats not the same as 'read someone elses summary'; reading existing summaries helps a lot as well, but when youre writing your own summary, you're already processing the wall of text you have to read through, and take out what is (or seems) important. You get to see it in the context and can read extra if you dont understand everything, so it automatically helps you put the focus where you need it most.

★ Dont be afraid to ask for help. I dont know what kind of anxieties you have, but Ive had a long time where I didnt want to ask for help as I was afraid that people would think I was stupid. Ive had a math teacher telling everyone in class during his lecture that "if you didnt understand the first half of the lecture (which I didnt at that point), you could just as well go home and skip the second half, as you'd never be able to follow that anyway". I subsequently started to feel uncomfortable in all of his lectures and completely flunked the exam. Im currently managing the exact same material decently; I just ask whenever I cant follow or when something goes too fast for me in a lecture, and ask classmates for help whilst making (homework) excercises [most of my homework is not obligatory, but making it really really helps as long as you have a clue what you need to do] or hand-in assignments.

★★ During the exam â˜…★

★ As soon as you get your paper, write down crucial things (i.e important forumulas, rules or exceptions to them that you can easily forget in the heat of the moment. Make sure you only do this on the provided answer sheets after you have to remove all books and electronics from your desk, as otherwise it may be mistaken for cheating.

★ If youre allowed to: do the excercises you know the answer to first. it has a couple of advantages:
1. If time is an issue, at least you dont miss out on things you do know, but happened to be at the end of the test
2. If youre stress-sensitive, it generally helps to start out with success, as it objectively calms you down [i.e it makes the situation far brighter]
3. It usually saves time. If you dont know what to do, you can stare at an excercise for 10 minutes, hoping that the words will change [spoiler: they wont. ive tried, but they wont] and still not know what you have to do. Accept that you dont know and move on, and only struggle with them if you have time left. Similar to point 2, youll be far more relaxed once youve done the easy stuff or the stuff you knew best, and having time left feels like a luxury.

★ Unless time is the only issue: take your time in writing down your answers. I personally have to because my handwriting looks like a cardiogram of someone that is being struck by lightning while taking 20 shots of adrenaline when I quickly jot down things or scribble formulas, so I need to take my time to write readable. If your handwriting is divine, you can skip this bit 

★ Again, if allowed:
Have a bottle of water near you on your table and take a sip between excercises, or when youre stuck. Personally wouldnt recommend energydrink and that stuff but thats probably a personal thing; while it may help you concentrate under normal circumstances, I feel like the sugar rush you get from them also epmhasize your stress. I would prefer this over chewing gum during the exam; I'd chew gum prior to the exam: chewing on something stimulates your brain and therefore helps you focus, but - and again, this is a personal thing - when I chew gum and it loses its flavor after like half an hour, my mind switches to "how do I get rid of this gum" because it annoys me. I used to fix the issue of gum getting tasteless after a while by eating MORE GUM as it refreshes the taste, but ive learned that having a huge blob of tasteless junk in your mouth (which eventually happens when you do this) will definitely not help your case.

★When working on the 'challenging' excercises at the end:
Even if you dont know the answer, write down what you do know (e.g related formulas, the relevant given facts). Even if you have no idea how to apply it or if you get stuck in the middle, you often score points for that.

★ If you have the time: 
Double-check your answers (especially calculation-related ones). If you know time isnt going to be the issue; do it for each excercise/assignment/problem. If youre not sure, only at the end.
In particular: when your answer is unbelievable and therefore probably (or factually) wrong (e.g negative temperature in K, an object moving faster than the speed of light, or a distance of a few centimeters when the problem involves a car trip or a running distance). Try to figure out where you went wrong in your calcs, as its perfectly possible you did everything right, but forgot a minus sign somewhere, or - for instance - forgot to convert units (causing you to lose a factor *10^3 for example). if  you do not have time, then DONT do this: while having an answer that's clearly wrong definitely doesnt boost your confidence, struggling/panicking over it is even worse, especially if its time consuming. Having the right calcs but a wrong answer generally gives you the majority of the points anyway. Also dont waste too much time on this, for the same reason mentioned above. Only briefly check for obvious mistakes, and if you cant find them, move on.
Also important: dont change ANYTHING unless you're certain that either your old answer/calc was wrong OR that your new calc/answer is right. I've tried to fix things in order to artificially get the right (or a 'better') answer before, and ended up losing my full score as it got me to stack mistakes in my calculations.

★★ After the exam â˜…★

Relax. Play a game, go outside, grab a beer. (unless you have 20 more exams the day after, in that case good luck). it'll link finishing an exam to positive things, which in turn makes an exam a positive thing, as you either succeed and rejoice, or mess up and do fun stuff afterwards.

If youre under 18:
Dont drink beer. Alcohol is bad.

Take this for what you will; Ive studied a ton of different stuff and havent finished a single first year of university yet, but in my eyes the system worked (or at least helped me) for a lot of subjects

[∞Ramses]

While studying, if you're not sure about something, ask your friends or parents or somebody you know. You might even ask some things on these forums. 

 

I always study with classical music or film music, it helps me focusing somehow.

 

"Quickly looking up some things" right before a test is an absolute NO-GO. It doesn't help in 90% of the cases. It's hard to resist, especially when other classmates are hearing out each other. Just stay away from those guys during this moment.

 

The rest: see:

 

 

Also during the test don't look at the 'points you'll surely get' and 'points you might gain'. This is kinda useless and you might panic over nothing.

[Randomystick]

Before the test:

- The few hours before, don't do any practice papers. Just read your notes, recap formulas and have the big picture of your entire syllabus.

- Ensure you know how to do various types of problems within a certain chapter, not just specialise in a particular type of problem. For instance, when practicing integration, do you know how to do integration by substitution, by parts and normal trigonometric integration equally well? If you're weak in a certain type of question, get extra practice on that. 

- Get a good night's sleep. 8 hours is perfect and will ensure your brain goes fast enough to finish the paper.

- Pee before going into the exam hall. Also bring a full water bottle.

 

 

During the test:

- When you're seated at your table waiting for the paper to start, psych yourself up with a catchphrase or line.

   -- For me, I use the phrase "it's just another walk in the park" to tell myself to relax and treat the paper like just another practice paper or assignment. (I also personally love walking in parks to de-stress, so the inclusion of the word "park" in my phrase really soothes my mind and brings back happy memories) Find a catchphrase that suits you personally, and you'll find it super effective.

 

 

- Skip questions when necessary. Don't spend half an hour on a 2-mark question you've no idea how to solve. It wastes time, and will only stress you out more. Instead, skip it and move on to something else you'll know how to do. It's impossible for you to know how to do every question in the paper.

   -- Note: Whenever this happens, I find it helpful to remind myself of how many marks I can still afford to lose. Eg if your paper is out of 100 and 70 is an A, then you have 30 marks to spare. That question you just skipped is worth 2 marks, so you can lose 28 more marks and still get an A! I find this really useful in stopping me from worrying about all those questions I skipped.

 

 

- When reading long questions, eg word problems or 3D figure problems, take the time to drink water as you read the question. It not only saves time but also gives you the mental boost to steam through the next few questions.

   -- NEVER skim through those chunks of text just because of a lack of time. You'll end up feeling more stressed, and more importantly you'll miss out critical information, such as the total surface area of the object or the value of another key variable. Personal experience.

 

 

- When doing calculations for questions, make it a point to check your workings as you do them, not after you get an answer or worse, after you finish the whole paper.

   -- If you managed to simplify a very complex expression, key in both expressions into your calculator and check if they give the same answer. Eg if you simplified sqrt(25x^2) into 6x, store the value of 1 into x, and key in both sqrt(25x^2) and 6x into your calculator. If one gives the answer of 5 and the other gives 6, then you know your simplification is wrong. Check your workings and correct for mistakes.

   -- This ensures that at least one part of your working is confirmed to be correct, so if you can't get the correct answer in the end, you can easily go back to the point where you last checked to proofread your workings. If you don't do this, you'll waste a lot of time not only in trying to find the error but also in correcting all your subsequent workings from where the error was made. Check as you do, and your margin for error will be very low.

   -- Checking after you finish the paper is both risky and inefficient, since 1) you might not even finish the paper on time and 2) you need to read the question all over again to refresh your memory and that wastes valuable seconds. If you finish early, go back to the questions you skipped and try to write down anything you can to secure some method marks.

 

 

Hope these pointers helped. These are the math exam skills that I've formulated myself over the years of studying and taking math exams in an Asian school, and I hope these tips will help you as much as it helped me secure a 76% in my recent math promos. Best of luck.

[ProfessorRiches]

While im normally calm and relaxed about everything, I too stress during exams when I know/feel I havent properly prepared, or when I see questions I cant handle. This is what I usually (plan to) do:

★★ Before the exam â˜…★

[depending on the kind of material you have to deal with of course; this is for most of my written exams where they dont just ask random facts]

★ Prepare properly (duh). For me that goes beyond reading the required literature. They dont ask me to cite pages of your textbook, they ask me to solve equations or to explain concepts and whatnot. So I must be able to do thát. I usually make practice exams (if available), or make the example excercises from lectures or from my book, check the answers and repeat. Make sure youve successfully produced a proper solution to any type of question you can get at least once.

★ Write summaries. beware that thats not the same as 'read someone elses summary'; reading existing summaries helps a lot as well, but when youre writing your own summary, you're already processing the wall of text you have to read through, and take out what is (or seems) important. You get to see it in the context and can read extra if you dont understand everything, so it automatically helps you put the focus where you need it most.

★ Dont be afraid to ask for help. I dont know what kind of anxieties you have, but Ive had a long time where I didnt want to ask for help as I was afraid that people would think I was stupid. Ive had a math teacher telling everyone in class during his lecture that "if you didnt understand the first half of the lecture (which I didnt at that point), you could just as well go home and skip the second half, as you'd never be able to follow that anyway". I subsequently started to feel uncomfortable in all of his lectures and completely flunked the exam. Im currently managing the exact same material decently; I just ask whenever I cant follow or when something goes too fast for me in a lecture, and ask classmates for help whilst making (homework) excercises [most of my homework is not obligatory, but making it really really helps as long as you have a clue what you need to do] or hand-in assignments.

★★ During the exam â˜…★

★ As soon as you get your paper, write down crucial things (i.e important forumulas, rules or exceptions to them that you can easily forget in the heat of the moment. Make sure you only do this on the provided answer sheets after you have to remove all books and electronics from your desk, as otherwise it may be mistaken for cheating.

★ If youre allowed to: do the excercises you know the answer to first. it has a couple of advantages:

1. If time is an issue, at least you dont miss out on things you do know, but happened to be at the end of the test

2. If youre stress-sensitive, it generally helps to start out with success, as it objectively calms you down [i.e it makes the situation far brighter]

3. It usually saves time. If you dont know what to do, you can stare at an excercise for 10 minutes, hoping that the words will change [spoiler: they wont. ive tried, but they wont] and still not know what you have to do. Accept that you dont know and move on, and only struggle with them if you have time left. Similar to point 2, youll be far more relaxed once youve done the easy stuff or the stuff you knew best, and having time left feels like a luxury.

★ Unless time is the only issue: take your time in writing down your answers. I personally have to because my handwriting looks like a cardiogram of someone that is being struck by lightning while taking 20 shots of adrenaline when I quickly jot down things or scribble formulas, so I need to take my time to write readable. If your handwriting is divine, you can skip this bit 

★ Again, if allowed:

Have a bottle of water near you on your table and take a sip between excercises, or when youre stuck. Personally wouldnt recommend energydrink and that stuff but thats probably a personal thing; while it may help you concentrate under normal circumstances, I feel like the sugar rush you get from them also epmhasize your stress. I would prefer this over chewing gum during the exam; I'd chew gum prior to the exam: chewing on something stimulates your brain and therefore helps you focus, but - and again, this is a personal thing - when I chew gum and it loses its flavor after like half an hour, my mind switches to "how do I get rid of this gum" because it annoys me. I used to fix the issue of gum getting tasteless after a while by eating MORE GUM as it refreshes the taste, but ive learned that having a huge blob of tasteless junk in your mouth (which eventually happens when you do this) will definitely not help your case.

★When working on the 'challenging' excercises at the end:

Even if you dont know the answer, write down what you do know (e.g related formulas, the relevant given facts). Even if you have no idea how to apply it or if you get stuck in the middle, you often score points for that.

★ If you have the time: 

Double-check your answers (especially calculation-related ones). If you know time isnt going to be the issue; do it for each excercise/assignment/problem. If youre not sure, only at the end.

In particular: when your answer is unbelievable and therefore probably (or factually) wrong (e.g negative temperature in K, an object moving faster than the speed of light, or a distance of a few centimeters when the problem involves a car trip or a running distance). Try to figure out where you went wrong in your calcs, as its perfectly possible you did everything right, but forgot a minus sign somewhere, or - for instance - forgot to convert units (causing you to lose a factor *10^3 for example). if  you do not have time, then DONT do this: while having an answer that's clearly wrong definitely doesnt boost your confidence, struggling/panicking over it is even worse, especially if its time consuming. Having the right calcs but a wrong answer generally gives you the majority of the points anyway. Also dont waste too much time on this, for the same reason mentioned above. Only briefly check for obvious mistakes, and if you cant find them, move on.

Also important: dont change ANYTHING unless you're certain that either your old answer/calc was wrong OR that your new calc/answer is right. I've tried to fix things in order to artificially get the right (or a 'better') answer before, and ended up losing my full score as it got me to stack mistakes in my calculations.

★★ After the exam â˜…★

Relax. Play a game, go outside, grab a beer. (unless you have 20 more exams the day after, in that case good luck). it'll link finishing an exam to positive things, which in turn makes an exam a positive thing, as you either succeed and rejoice, or mess up and do fun stuff afterwards.

If youre under 18:

Dont drink beer. Alcohol is bad.

Take this for what you will; Ive studied a ton of different stuff and havent finished a single first year of university yet, but in my eyes the system worked (or at least helped me) for a lot of subjects

+

 

Also chew gum while you study and the same gum (different piece ofc, same flavor) when you're taking the test.

It's proven to help :^)