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Test Anxiety
Tape 5- Exam preparation
Preparing for examinations… Now to the immediate end of all the reading,
listening, and scheduling; the college examination. One wishes that it weren’t that
the goal of accumulating knowledge were the only goal. Still, the college
examination has its purposes: First; an employer has a basis upon which to hire
graduates; Second, parents will know whether or not their money's wasted;
Third, undergraduate faculties will know whether or not they might give the space
to a more deserving student; or graduate faculties will know whether or not the
student has a good chance of making the advanced degree; Fifth, the individual
professor will know if he or she is doing well. The results of the examination will
show the professor where to make adjustments in his or her approach, the places
he or she must clear up, and the expansion is an educating moment of interaction
between the professor and the student; Sixth, the student probably gets the
greatest help. The examination is a teaching tool that highlights his or her
weaknesses or strengths, it acts as a powerful motivator toward improvement,
and most importantly, it forces a final review that requires the student to
synthesize all of the ideas, the significant detail, under the heading of one central
concept and total organization.
You will encounter many kinds of testing situations in college. The basic division
is between subjective and objective tests. The subjective exam demands that you
write a limited number of brief essays in the period of an hour or two; There's
room for personal opinion. The objective examination confronts you with
combinations of the following: multiple choice; true/false; filling in blanks; matching
sets; answering questions with only a single answer; there's little room for
personal opinion. Related to both, is the problem-solving test, common in
mathematics courses, but also possible in most courses. This test is either
subjective or objective, depending upon whether there is one good way to solve
the problem, frequently the case in mathematics and the sciences. Or several
good ways to solve the problem, for example; the analysis of a poem during the
literature test.
During the term you are likely to be tested from time to time. Infrequently, you
will get 5 to 10 minute quizzes, often unannounced, that will generally be
objective, no matter what the course. Much less frequently, at two to four week
spaces, if at all, will be an hour-long test in mathematics, sciences, and social
sciences. Problem solving and objective tests will be most common. In the
humanities, subjective tests will prevail.
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You will generally have a midterm. Although it will take the same length of time as the other hourly
tests, it will probably be more extensive. The instructor will be trying to motivate you to pull together
several weeks of education. Accordingly, he or she will very likely feel its grade a very important one.
Then, in many colleges, you will have the final examination. Generally, a whole week will be set aside
for you to study for tests and to be tested. Testing periods will often be two to three hours long, and
demand that you be fresh on the whole term's work. The resulting grades would generally be your
most important ones. It may even be the only one. Events will be chaotic, your schedule will be upset,
space problems may confront you with three examination periods in one day, and three days without
examinations. You will have to make definite preparations for the week.
Let us go into these preparations. To simplify matters, I will talk only about the final examination
thereafter. To prepare for other examinations and quizzes, do the same on a smaller scale. The
traditional mode of preparation that you will see in this, is the cramming session. Staying up night after
night, working solidly, will be a certain proportion of college students. They have not studied
systematically, or at all, during the term. And now they are hitting it in last-minute desperation. They
aren't eating or sleeping well, they're under tremendous stress, and experiencing unpleasant emotions,
ranging from worried anxiety, to fear, to historical panic. They're borrowing notes from those who
took them. They crowd around a student who has been doing well in the course, and paying attention
to his amateur lectures, that they never gave to the professional ones of their lecturer. They are
hunting for old examinations, and memorizing them with the pale hope that the instructor didn't get
around to changing them this year. Is this going to work? Doubtful… There are studies illustrating
that such forced learning up to the moment of a test actually eliminates knowledge. Only the student
who has studied little, or has studied poorly, will benefit, for he or she has very little knowledge to
eliminate. It certainly is possible for a bright, emotionally controlled student, to pack in enough on a
few nights to make a C on the test. You'll see it happen. But he or she is very intelligent and has the
emotions that were wrought. He or she will also forget the bulk of the material. Next semester the
student will be in trouble with the courses that expect the knowledge of this course. He or she will
have little to offer to employers, and little, other than a diploma, to prove that he or she is an educated
man or woman. The bulk of cramming students, will simply be going through a very painful period,
before they fail a course.
How should you prepare, then? Actually, preparation begins the first day of the term. At that
moment, begin to practice good study habits, and you will have little to worry about. Read
assignments, attend all the lectures, take good notes, schedule wisely, and review weekly. Prepare
daily, and you will not only, not have to cram, you will be in line for a C grade at the very least, unless
you were admitted on scholastic probation. When the examination week approaches, set up a good
schedule so that you can begin your final reviewing. Log into your schedule about three hours of
review for each course, that should be quite enough, and don't pack them together, an hour to a half
an hour at a time.
In scheduling, list for first attack the subjects that worry you the most, so that you can cut down on
the anxiety level as soon as possible. Always confront the worst things first, to save energy expended
in worry and fear. There is some controversy about when you should stop reviewing, enough that you
will clearly have to find your own comfortable medium. D. E. P. Smith of the University of Michigan, a
general editor of the manual on SQ4R, is quite insistent that you stop studying, two days before you
take a test in it.
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He feels you must have a period for subconscious assimilation of the material, and that is, as long as
you keep putting in information, you will not assimilate. Others subject an hour brush-up review the
night before, or possibly considering a one or two page outline of the whole course. Others even
suggest that you work the day of the examination a half hour or so just before it, to build up
motivation. For the best rote for yourself, you must experiment.
There also is a good deal of advice available on methods of review. Much of it is conflicting advice. To
me, it seems you are in the best condition if you have constructed key questions throughout the
semester for both book and lecture notes. Then simply asking the question of yourself should be
enough. Smith of Michigan agrees. Other possible methods are going through the text book and
lecture notes first to find the main ideas, and then filling out with details organized around these main
points. Second, using all senses in review, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, see it, speak it, hear it, and
touch it by writing it. Some people clearly have better memories in one area than in another. A
musician, for instance, has a highly developed auditory memory. Find yours and exploit the discovery.
Third, some advocates study groups at this time. There are definite disadvantages, depending on the
group. A parasite in the assembly can cause trouble by exploiting everyone for himself at their cost.
Or it can deteriorate into a pleasant, destructive role session. Or, if one or more of you is close to
panic, the panic will spread to the others like a disease. Yet if you are prepared when you go in, group
study can be motivating, will give you a chance to verbalize, and allow you to recite, review, and reflect.
It will very likely show up your weak area. The best system for such review is to have each of you
spending an equal amount of time questioning the others using lecture and text book notes as answer
sheets. This practice will also reveal weaknesses in the questioner's notes.
What should you review? I cannot stress too heavily that above all, you should review main ideas in a
central organization of each course, no matter what kind of a test you'll be getting. There is good
evidence for this view. 100 students were divided into four groups. Group one studied for an essay
exam, two, for a multiple choice, three, for fill-in, and four for true/false. When they came to take
their examinations they were surprised. Each group had to take all four kinds of examination. Their
grades were about equal. But five weeks later they were tested again. Those who studied for the
essay examination did much better on all the examinations. The study strongly suggests that the most
economic mode of study is that which emphasizes, as does the essay exam, main ideas, central
organization, general trends, underlying relationships. The stress clearly is on comprehension, not on
memorization, on education, not on training. Those who comprehend will be successful in detailed
examinations. Even though group number one didn't study for detail, it got enough to do as well, and
eventually better than those groups that studied for detail alone.
Why? If they didn't have the detail memorized, (group number one students,) yet could figure it out by
reasoning from first principles. So you might ask yourself at the beginning, what are the five most
important ideas of this course? Then, ask why. Now go a little deeper. What are the ten most
important ideas? Why. Then, how are these ideas related to one another? Then, what material is
repeated in both lecture and text book? Why? Then, what are the main headings in the main
chapters? Why are they the heading? Then, what are the most important supporting ideas. You
should be off to a good start in any course. Of course, you will have to work harder on the details,
certain statistics, technical vocabulary, etcetera, if you are set up against an objective test. But it will be
simpler to learn now. You should also know your instructor and his or her examination methods.
Some people emphasize relationships between materials.
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Others will be asking you to apply their theories to new situations. Still others will be anxious that you
will be able to reproduce specific details such as names, dates, definitions, et cetera. You could also
make some good guesses about the examination itself. Even to the extent of trying to write up an
actual final to see if you can second-guess the instructor. It's an exercise that gives you the proper set,
asking and answering questions. You can get an idea, for instance, of the examination coverage by a
little calculation. Let us say that the instructor has announced that he or she will give 100 multiple
choice questions with no special emphasis on any subject. Look at your notes. Let us say that you
have 50 pages of lecture notes. Properly, then, you can expect him or her to query you on the most
important two items on each page. To narrow it down a little more, get the main ideas and central
organization in mind. Now which 100 details would you choose to clarify these.
I will give you some more concrete suggestions and specific types of test, essays, and objective in my
next lecture. But first, to conclude this one, I would like to bring up the subject of your physical and
emotional preparation for the test. You must be in the best of physical preparation, a good arson for
not cramming. You must have adequate food. You must have had adequate sleep, for sleepiness
damages your organizing ability. You must stay away from drugs, for overdoses can damage your
ability to distinguish differences to perceive, to apply theory, and to criticize, all very likely possible
tasks in an exam. Panic is one of the most common psychological problems around examination time.
Although mild stress will help you, strong stress won't, except in very mechanical tasks. In a situation
where different paths through difficult terrain must be carefully considered, you will be damaged badly.
What is the cause of panic? It is generally fear of failure, most evident in those who are strongly
motivated, and have exceptionally high goals. The more unreasonable their demands upon themselves
are, the greater the fear of failure. And the greater the fear of failure, the greater the likelihood of
failure, and the greater the likelihood, the greater the fear, and so on. Until you reach a point of
hysteria, manifested in tears, loss of weight, vomiting, allergies, and most damaging, totally forgetting
during the examination. For your fear has destroyed your perceptions, your understanding, and your
general effectiveness. How do you cope with it? The best method is to study well throughout the
year, and then you'll have no reason to worry. Don't expect perfection, everyone will miss answers on
tests. If you don't expect to, you'll be unmanned. Above all, stay away from panicky students, the
emotion can be contagious.
This is the end of Cassette Number Five.