[VoxMSI.Rogue]

So I am sitting here trying to get my shit together for my Ecology and Evolution exam this afternoon.....

Recently I have been having some extreme stress with exams, last semester I completely blanked in an exam and ever since I have had really bad anxiety when it comes to exam day.

I am usually well prepared and pass, but I have been having a really hard time calming myself down and focusing because I am so stressed. This only started after blanking out in my exam last semester, before then I was 100% stress free and never got anxious before an exam.

I know a lot of you are currently at Uni or High School and it is coming up to final exam time for most. Just wondering if others have this experience, or have gone through this before.

How have you coped with exam stress? How do you make it through and focus? Any tips for overcoming my exam anxiety?

Good luck to everyone who is about to take exams, post in here if you need moral support or want to talk it over, because I personally am half way through a freak out and know how stressful this time can be!

[|Erasmus|]

My usual advice to people who ask me how you can do well in exams is just to ignore external pressure and just not stress. But it sounds like a confidence thing.... you had a bad exam and now you are worried it will happen again. Just do some practice papers/past exams. Prove to yourself you can do still do them and you are capable of doing well.

I always found this the best way to study regardless as exam questions are often different to just random stuff in the textbooks.

[jayaiwhy]

Last year when I was studying in Melbourne, I would spend the night before playing Starcraft and 3-4 hours before exam, I would cram the shit out of it.

[Demosthenes]

Originally Posted by jayaiwhy

Last year when I was studying in Melbourne, I would spend the night before playing Starcraft and 3-4 hours before exam, I would cram the shit out of it.

I do not recommend this...
"If you fail to prepare, you're preparing to fail"
-my creepy year 10 math teacher.
Also famous for such quotes as
"If I told you that you have a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?"
creepy...


Over prepare. Learn it so thoroughly that you can vomit it up even when you freeze up.
When in an exam and you find a question you don't know (skip it and do the others, but when you come back to it) think about what you DO know. Your mind works like a network of nodes. If you can remember the "first principle" you should be able to work your way towards the correct answer. (unless you never learnt it :P)

Stress is not always bad. It's a great motivator.

Quick Comments

Asrathiel:

Well the second quote is Monty Python, which is always good :p Creepy from teacher though!

[|Erasmus|]

Originally Posted by Demosthenes

Stress is not always bad. It's a great motivator.

Disagree, somewhat. With assignments and stuff, sure, I thrive when i have a deadline to work to. Give me weeks and I'll procrastinate badly.

Stressing about exams though is a sure fire way to fail, for me. My advice if you're getting stressed about an exam from studying it is to take a break. You may work efficiently (for assignments and things) but it's not a good environment to really be understanding and having stuff sink in.

Quick Comments

Demosthenes:

yeah i should have added that too much stress is detrimental :)

[eCKo`Tazerenix]

Originally Posted by |Erasmus|

Disagree, somewhat. With assignments and stuff, sure, I thrive when i have a deadline to work to. Give me weeks and I'll procrastinate badly.

Interestingly that is a result of chemicals being released in your brain when you get stressed right before a due date that cause you to focus better.

My advice is to do past exam papers. My dad (who has a PhD and two masters) says that in all the years he studied the best thing he could do was to look at the past papers. The syllabus and curriculum doesn't change significantly from year to year hence most exams have very very similar structures and questions.

[mGGNemesis]

Originally Posted by Tazerenix

My advice is to do past exam papers. My dad (who has a PhD and two masters) says that in all the years he studied the best thing he could do was to look at the past papers. The syllabus and curriculum doesn't change significantly from year to year hence most exams have very very similar structures and questions.

This is actually very true. Many pupils have feedback that doing them and some while imitating the exam conditions, would help better prepare yourself mentally and actually reduce the stress and pressure as well on the actual day. Some even said, it felt like another practice session on the actual day of the exams.

[VoxMSI.Rogue]

Yeah Eras that is how I usually study. I think you are right about the bad experience, it will probably just take a while to get my confidence back and to be free from the anxiety of exams. I just hope it doesn't take too long for that to happen!

I was thinking of going to talk to someone at Uni about it, since it has gotten pretty bad and I am worried it could affect me in the long run. I have talked extensively to my mum about it and she knows that I am going through some pretty major anxiety right now and that my exam results could be bad because of it so I don't think it is the external pressure, I don't usually even care so much if I fail one paper especially if it has a low pass rate or I have struggled with the paper for the semester. But now I am freaking out even with papers which I know I will pass the exam and that I have done well with through the semester.

Jai, I can cram. Hell my classmates call me "The Human Sponge" because I can literally study for 3 hours before a test and still get a 70%ish mark, or go into a test knowing one answer and somehow walk out passing.

But since I have been having these freak outs, I actually have been studying my ass off for my exams. It doesn't help they are all in a three day period, with literally less than a day to revise between them.

I guess the saving grace is as of tomorrow night at 8pm I am done for the semester unless I have a dreaded resit!

[Antel0pe]

i don't have exams yet :/

Quick Comments

jayaiwhy:

*shakes fist* just you wait...

[mGGNemesis]

I have had good pupils blank out during exams. Normally I advise them to just stop, take deep breaths, calm the mind. Even picture a calming scene like the sea or water might work. Then take it one step at a time, one question at the time.

This is of course assuming u are already well prepared for the exams, having done your practice studied all the stuff u need to study.

[mGGNemesis]

oh and try to be prepared for each exams as in the equipments needed.

I suddenly recall a boy I had. Good Maths pupil getting A. The tests he fails or does badly are the ones he forgets to bring his calculator. :P As in he literally falls apart when he forgets to bring his calculator even if the paper doesn't use the calculator a whole lot or u could still manage some of by doing mental calculations and such.

[Zepph]

I hardly stress with exams unless I think I might be in danger of failing them. I suppose I have a good mentality because in any stressful situation I'm able to kick stressful thoughts in the teeth and remind myself that stress is out to ruin it for me so I should forget it.

One thing that did help for the times I was stressed was something my dad said. "Failure requires effort." i.e. you have to make a conscious effort to not complete the work, study, do assignments etc. in order to fail. It's very hard to fail if you've been doing stuff. So you should chilllllllllllllllll and just do what yoou do when you do what you do ^^

[mGGDrGooSe]

A few days before each exam I always took the position of, if I don't know it now, I'm not gonna know it come exam time (i.e. spilt milk? O well!). And so I would actually play games all day before an exam, or maybe study for another exam, but not the one that was on tomorrow. Studying for anything all comes down to learning what the course requires, not trying to memorise every little thing that you have done in lectures. It may not help you right now, but if you go through each lecture with the mindset of finding to 2-4 sentences that tells the entire story, then everything becomes a lot clearer (i.e. 2-4 lines = a pass, and the rest of the material/application = distinctions). Of course sometimes you get those really bad lecturers who dont write lectures with the purpose of having a short coherent story at the end of it. And that's when you need to speak to them through the year and tell them that you are having trouble understanding the underlying story. If you cant get a quick short story from each lecture, and the lecturer can't tell you what it is meant to be either, then I'm afraid you just have a bad teacher and you need to rely on classmates to help you find the story.

[ROCCAT_Savior]

You've probably done this already but one thing that has really helped me with the exams recently is looking at past papers, checking out topics/questions that come up a lot, and blitz the shit out of them, I'm not sure how well that applies to science as your sort of tested across the whole board, but for a test I had last week I nailed it just because I basically already new what was going to come up, and thus could study accordingly.

I'm shit at studying but one thing thats helped me is 30 min studying 10 min break etcetc, small bite sized chunks. Also mixing something you really like, followed by something you dislike, just so that you're not doing all the good stuff and all the bad stuff at seperate times.

Edit: so that didn't really answer your questions XD,
I don't really get stressed come exam time, I'm not exactly sure why but I guess it's something along the lines of "I know the material well, I've done well in coursework through the semester, no matter what everythings going to be fine".

I think for overcoming anxiety the last point could help a lot, just keep reminding yourself that everything works out in the end, or something to that effect.

[SFTAElessar]

if ur stressed, play StarCraft, it will help

[Daboo]

I dont really get stressed enough. Might sound cool, but it's not.

The only time I could really study was when I was totally pressured. I honestly think stress is really good for motivation.

[breadfan]

I get really stressed in the lead up to an exam, but come the night before and the day of, I just calm right down since I know I can't really change anything at that point. I'm just going to sit an exam and whatever grade I get, I'm stuck with. Unfortunately, it's not a conscious thing I force myself into, so no advice on how to relax.

I guess maybe you could just try to place less importance on individual exams?

[TADivinity]

For anything HSIE / business / legal (i.e. essay focused) related:

Write out all your notes that you need on countless pages.

Print these. Highlight the most important parts. Decrease each lecture or topic onto one page. Half a page if possible. Look for opportunities to remove points of common sense (common in these types of subjects - however with legal subjects the points that you think are of common sense are sometimes more important)

Make them all in dot points. Memorise the dot points line by line. Just continuously write them down. Make acronyms and everything. If you do it over and over and over again - you Will remember their order and the actual dot point. You will at least remember what the first word's letter is - which is sometimes enough to trigger your brain for the entire sentence. Its amazing how much you can memorise by repetitively writing down dot points.

MAKE ESSAY PLANS BEFORE EVERY QUESTION. Works like magic, and you can plan your time in the exam sooo much better.

With this method you can start the day before the exam and pass. It will be a big day / night - but its better than failing. Try your best to get 6 hrs sleep - 8 is optimal.

Doing this 5 days before the exam can get you distinction's for sure.

[VoxMSI.Rogue]

Well exam number two down.

I was pretty stressed before hand, nearly fell down the stairs, was shaking so bad I couldn't write etc.

I feel a bit better now and am pretty sure I passed, just totally exhausted from feeling crappy and worrying while trying to get all my thoughts down on paper.

I usually use any previous exams available, this paper didn't supply one which made things a bit trickier. All I knew were we had 15 questions. Luckily I think I did ok, only time will tell.

One more exam tomorrow, I already know I will freak out and be a mess, but atleast at 8pm tomorrow night it is all over and I can just relax.

Thanks for everyones advice, it has all been really helpful. I know everyone deals with exams differently, but I really want to improve and get passed this stress and anxiety and figure trying anything at this point may help!

[Demosthenes]

It seems your first task is now summarising this thread...