Guide to Success: How to cope with Exam anxiety.
Have you ever found yourself in a situation, where once you have entered the exam room your palms are starting to sweat, you feel pit in stomach, and it seems to be impossible to focus? If this sounds familiar, do not worry, you are not alone, 80,6% of all students have experienced exam anxiety at least once. This can be due to the lack of preparation, fear of failure or previous bad experiences of taking tests, which can lead to a lower performance. Today, we will talk about some of the ways, which might help you to reduce stress before the exam time.
1. Set up realistic goals:
When planning and setting study goals, you should be honest and realistic with yourself. This is not about lowering grades' expectations but expecting a 100% score for all the exams is not good for the mental health. Although, feeling confident before the exam is important, the essential thing is to keep your feet on the ground.
2. Make a study plan:
Making study plan is scary because it seems like you have tons of things to get done. What I recommend is to prioritize your studies based on your knowledges. For instance, if you are bad at chemistry, chemistry must be on top of priorities’ list. Consequently, if you are good at math, math is the last subject of the list and so forth.
3. Revise:
It is not a secret that revision is one of the most crucial parts of exam preparation routine (especially, when you start revising as early as you can), however, the successful strategy is in revising a little but often, by splitting up your revision sessions into one-hour slots across a number of days. This approach is more likely to reduce your stress levels and enhance learning experience.
4. Stick to your routine:
And the last but not the least important thing that might help you to destress in such challenging times is to get into your daily routine: that includes having enough sleep, drinking water and exercising regularly.
The time leading up to a test is so laden with anxiety because tests are the high - pressured situations that can deplete your working memory. However, it is important to know that a little bit of stress is a good thing, stress heightens our senses and brings our best. I wish you best on your upcoming exams!