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How to Cope With Test Anxiety?

Although it is not completely out of place to feel a sense of nervousness before your test, test anxiety presents with nasty symptoms. These symptoms could cause you to lose your ability to recall what you studied or affect your thinking capacity negatively.

Symptoms of test anxiety include:

  • Increased heart rate
  • Roaming thoughts
  • Stomach upset
  • Sweaty palms
  • A feeling of anger, fear, or dread for the test
  • Panic attack in some instances

In most cases, lack of self-confidence, fear of failing, or not being ready for your test can cause test anxiety. If you’ve had a terrible experience while taking a test in the past, leave it at that.  Do not allow that to cause you to panic.

Here are effective ways to help you overcome test anxiety.

  1. Get yourself adequately Prepared and Ready for the exam.

No doubt, getting yourself prepared helps you overcome test anxiety. It gives you that sense of confidence you need to take your exam. Also, your mind will be at ease with no fear in you. This helps you face your exam without any form of anxiety.

Other things you can do to get yourself prepared include:

  • Avoid cramming instead, study your books, and seek to understand all concepts.
  • Be a part of a study group that has similar goals as yours.
  • Have a study routine and stick to it to help you cover all your learning schedule.
  • Update your study skills.
  • Get to know about the test and go through past materials to help you have a clue of how the test is.
  • Ask your friends and tutors whenever you are lost to help perfect your understanding.
  1. Get Enough Sleep Days to Your Test.

While it is good to study hard and at night, do not form the habit of depriving yourself of it. Not getting enough sleep can cause a wide array of symptoms similar to test anxiety. Getting enough sleep can help you combat stress and keep your memory performing at its best. Overcome test anxiety by getting enough rest days or weeks to your test.

Here are a few tips to help you get enough sleep to help you prevent test anxiety.

  • Create your sleep and wake-time hours and stick to it.
  • Create a study time-table and maintain it.
  • Study all through the semester to avoid cramming or crashed reading.
  • Avoid watching TV or using a computer just before bedtime.
  • Doing all this will enable you to stay up to date in your studies while having to enjoy enough sleep.
  • It is alright for you to take naps to make up for lost sleep hours.
  • Avoid taking caffeine a few hours before bed-time.
  1. Get to the Test Venue as early as possible.

Ensure that you get to your test venue at least 10 minutes to your exam time, as this will decrease your anxiety due to rushing. Get everything ready the night before your exams and wake up early. Eat your breakfast and get some snacks if possible, to help keep yourself energized.

Also, you can keep yourself pacified by going through any piece of literature if you find yourself getting anxious while waiting for the exam. Stay away from colleagues who are having test anxiety to avoid working yourself up before the exam.

  1. Have a positive mental attitude.

Fill yourself with positive thoughts and boost your morale with positive words. There is nothing that works better than believing in yourself and having faith that you can strive through the high tide. Also, you must know that one exam is not enough to define whether you are a success or failure. Having a positive mental attitude is crucial for any exam, especially long and challenging ones like the USMLE Step 2 for medical students.

Stay positive because negativity can only make you ask the following anxiety-inducing questions:

  • What areas will the exam cover?
  • Will it be too difficult?
  • Will I pass the exam?

Tell yourself positive things like:

  • I can do this.
  • I am prepared and there is no need to be afraid.

 

Summarily, combating test anxiety is a process that one needs to be actively involved in. to this end, ensure that what should be in place is in place. Get yourself prepared, never deprive yourself of sleep, and maintain a positive mental attitude. Doing such will keep your test anxiety at bay.

By Maia Steel

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WRITING CENTER PHILOSOPHY

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Understanding the Role and Purpose of Writing Centers

Although writing centers have been around for thirty or more years, academians still struggle to understand the essential role and purpose of these tutoring centers; students and faculty alike tend to think of the center as a place limited to remediation because there is not a clear understanding of the tutorial instruction and methodology that is implemented in these centers. In other words, the writing center is perceived as a place where only bad writers go to learn how to write, and it is the responsibility of the writing center to perfect students’ grammar skills so that afterwards, they return to the classroom as “better writers” and faculty members can then grade students’ essays without having to worry about certain problems.

Since this concept is so common, it is important to understand where this idea originated. The majority of collegiate-level writing centers were created in reaction to the 1970’s “literacy crisis” and the subsequent “back-to-basics” movement in academics.  “Initially conceived as a means of providing supplementary instruction for inadequately prepared students, writing centers were too often viewed from the outside as little more than remedial services or “fix it” clinics where students memorized comma rules and mended fragments.” This “fix it” shop mentality, unfortunately, still prevails in some academic settings. Thus, the question of “what is the purpose and role of a writing center” remains unanswered.

Purpose of Writing Centers

The Baylor Writing Center Tutor Guidebook defines a writing center as a “beyond-the-classroom space where students can explore confusing or challenging educational issues through dialogic relationships.” In other words, a writing center is a place for conversation and dialogue.  This means that a writing center is not a place for monologues or one-sided instruction. Tutors do not take on the role of professor or expert, meaning that tutors do not edit, correct, or tell students how to “fix” their papers. Rather, writing centers are founded on the idea that tutors and students work collaboratively through open communication to discover effective writing strategies and approaches to reading and writing that are particularly useful to the individual student.

Writing centers are not tutor focused; they are student-centered. They seek to enhance students’ self-worth and confidence by working within non-evaluative relationships of trust. We believe that absence of evaluation by the tutors allows the students to express concerns and doubts, take risks, draw on personal resources and knowledge, and make choices about their work. This approach is a useful strategy that creates a low-risk environment that promotes student self-confidence and autonomy, and, more importantly, can serve students throughout their education and beyond as they enter the workforce. It also helps students become confident writers and better writers over time.

Role of Writing Centers

Through these practices, writing centers aim to change student perspectives on writing and our centers.  Because writing centers tend to focus on the individual student more than a single paper and seek to tackle big problems (higher-order concerns such as voice, organization, content) before little ones (lower-order concerns such as grammar, citation), a student’s attitude towards writing shifts. They become more aware and comfortable with the writing process as a whole (brainstorming, analysis, drafts, revisions, etc.) and begin to develop the fundamental skills required to write for any discipline. Additionally, students and faculty alike realize that writing centers are not an editing “day-care” service—we do not correct students’ papers from start to finish, we do not correct every error, we do not let students drop off their papers and expect these types of services, we do not support the mentality that a visit to our center will yield a perfected paper, and we firmly reject the notion that our center is a place where bad writers come to be better writers.

Conclusion

Writing centers have come a long way since the 1970’s—we went from “fix-it” shops to creating our own theory, rhetoric, and discussion about writing centers. Each writing center is different and unique, but we all have the same core values and responsibilities. We embrace the idea that no matter what level of writing our students are at when they come into our centers, it is our duty to look beyond the students’ “lack of preparation” and meet students wherever they are in their learning. Our mission as administrators, professors, and tutors, is to work with our students to move forward. We must continue to make progress so that our students can arrive at a place of success, satisfaction, retention, and understanding.

References:

International Writing Centers Association. (n.d.) Writing Center Concept. (Originally produced by Muriel Harris and published by The National Council of Teachers of English in 1988.) Retrieved from http://writingcenters.org/resources/writing-center-concept/

Penti, M. E. (2007). Baylor School Writing Tutor Manual. Retrieved from
http://mail.baylorschool.org/~cowens/writingcenter/Baylor%20School%20Writing%20Tutor%20Manual.pd

https://learning.untdallas.edu