by Kevin J. Browne

Created on: October 24, 2008

Many students have trouble with test anxiety and are frustrated by their lack of ability to manage it. So, here are some helpful tips. First, of course, you should adequately prepare for the exam. No amount of relaxation techniques, meditation, or visualization will overcome lack of preparation. You've got to know the material! However, some find that knowing the material is not enough to overcome their anxiety about being tested. For these students some basic techniques in relaxation, meditation, and visualization can prove quite helpful.

As a student myself I instinctively developed certain rituals that I always performed before every exam. I never studied late the night before an exam believing that an evening of relaxation, a good dinner, and a good night's sleep were important to help prepare for the morning's exam. Walking to the exam, I did some positive self talk, telling myself that I had prepared, I studied, I knew the material and it was now time to demonstrate that knowledge. When I entered the classroom before the exam, I never took out my notes or book to do last minute studying. The idea behind this is quite simple. If you act as if you still need to study for the exam then you will make yourself believe you still need to study. You will begin questioning your preparation and wonder if perhaps you have forgotten everything. You will set yourself up for a whole host of negative thoughts and just the time when you need to be thinking positively. Once I received the exam I would look at each question carefully before beginning. This gave me time to collect my thoughts and begin planning how to proceed. I identified the easier questions so I could begin with them and save the more difficult questions until the end. Above all, I recognized that each exam would contain some difficult questions that might take more time. I didn't panic when I saw them because I was prepared for their appearance.

Most of these rituals were developed for my own practice without any thought to whether they would help others or not. I just felt that having some set rituals would benefit my test taking efforts. As it turns out, the process of developing rituals before a stressful activity is psychologically sound advice. A good resource for more information on this is Josh Waitzkin's book The Art of Learning. In it he describes the same basic method of developing a set of rituals to prepare for optimum performance. The set of rituals does not matter as much as the process.

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