I'm a part time UNISA student and I
have been suffering from exam anxiety since I can remember and when I say
suffering; I mean suffering. It's absolutely terrible. No matter how prepared I
am before I sit down at the examination venue, the minute I open the exam paper
everything just goes out the window.
A lot of people do not understand
this struggle and simply dismiss it and say things like,"oh, you probably
weren't prepared enough" or "you should have studied harder" and
personally I find these comments very disheartening. I have experienced going
"blank" numerous times and it is extremely frustrating because in the
end my marks just look like I simply did not put in enough effort (those of you
who have been through this know exactly what it feels like - TERRIBLE!).
I have had this problem since
primary school and it came and went. For as long as I have been writing tests
and exams, I have had anxiety. What I realized is that the times I got marks
that I was satisfied with or that I was proud of are on the few occasions when
I went into the exam with a "not caring" attitude. When I am
concerned and I know I have studied are the times that the anxiety kicks in and
things go sideways. But honestly, how can you not care about something that's important,
especially when it has such a negative impact on your life? I have had to
re-write numerous tests because of this and it really hinders ones confidence.
I have read numerous blog posts and
articles about exam anxiety and a lot of them talk about being prepared by
going through the work repetitively because "it makes it stick". This
doesn't always work for me. I have recently finished writing exams and that's
what inspired me to write about this because surely I can't be the only exam
anxiety sufferer. I tried doing a poll to find others like me out there so that
maybe we could talk about this and help each other out but unfortunately there
was no response but I'm still new at this so I'm guessing that maybe my
approach was wrong.
Anyways back to the problem at hand;
I have tried taking Rescue tablets and they seemed to have a bit of a
calming effect but it did not last long (not even for my driving test).
So basically I would like to hear from you guys out there, how do you cope with
exam anxiety? I could really use the help.
Here are a few things that have
helped lessen the severity of my anxiety before an exam:
- Do not pull an all-nighter the
night before an exam, get enough sleep
- Go for a walk before the exam
to calm your nerves
- If you feel yourself start to
panic when you start writing; pause and take a few deep breaths
- Make sure you get to your exam
on time, leave home early enough to plan for any mishaps that may happen
or cause a delay
- Know exactly when and where you
are going to write your exam
- Pack all the things you will
need for your exam the night before so you don't get frazzled in the
morning
For some study tips check out the
link below:
I'm sure there are some of you out
there that have experienced this too, how did you deal with it?
