GNA CAMPUS – Exams can be stressful. . . especially when you’re not prepared. You may feel uneasy about how you’re going to do every time you sit down to take a test. Many exams may trick or confuse you. However, being prepared is the most important thing you can do to help alleviate stress. Below are some strategies and ideas you can use to help fight test anxiety: 

• Have a positive attitude

Having a positive attitude for a test is important. If you don’t believe in yourself, you’ll start second-guessing your responses. By having a positive attitude, you’ll be sure that you’re heading on the right path. Besides, a good and fresh mindset is a great start for being a test taker.

• Know what to look for

Knowing what to look for when reading a story is key. When you’re taking the exam, you read a long story, read the questions, but you’re unsure of the answer to them. A good strategy you should use is to read the questions before you read the story, so you know what to look for while reading. This can help you a lot through the test because you’re reading with a purpose.

• Process of Elimination

Process of Elimination is a great source to use when test-taking. Not being sure of which answer is right can confuse you and waste your time on a question. Cross out the answers that don’t seem right and focus on the remaining answers. This strategy saves a lot of time and pushes you more towards the right answer.

• Unfamiliar words

Coming across an unfamiliar word in the text during an exam can be scary. You start feeling like you probably should know the word. Exams do this all the time just to make sure you’re reading the story. Using this strategy can help you with that problem. When you encounter an unfamiliar word, read around before and after the word comes up for clues. 

• Recognize Your Mistakes

When you realize your answer might be wrong, make sure you know why it’s wrong. It’s important to know why you think an answer is wrong, so you can avoid it next time. This can be a big help on the test because you’ll most likely get a good score on your test.

• Uncovering the Evidence

This strategy is very useful on a test when you’re doing an essay. Most likely after multiple-choice questions for a story, they’re going to ask you to write an essay about it. Usually, that comes with finding evidence therefore, the best thing to do is underline the most important details, the plot, the conflict, the rising action and falling action. Following this will help you find evidence about what the story is regarding.

• Memorize the Formulas

Before taking the math exams, this strategy is needed. Studying and learning the formulas will help you out. You may or may not get to memorize all of them but when reading the questions and seeing how a problem is set up, it can jog your memory. Some tests provide you with a formula sheet but that shouldn’t stop you from studying them. Better to be safe than sorry.