Martin - troubled times call for direct language, so let me be frank.
If you don't turn up for your finals I am going to fly over there and kick seven kinds of shite out of you.
Hope this helps.
AC
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Anyway - read this...
Exam Anxiety:
Examinations are an integral part of university life. Without them, nepotism would surely reign and it would be ‘who you know’ rather than ‘what you know’ that would matter academically. But the possession of relevant knowledge does not guarantee exam success. Instead, good results depend significantly on how well you can organise and express your knowledge on the big day. In short, you will receive marks not for what you know - but for how well you transmit that knowledge under examination conditions.
How to do your best when it matters most. But exams are potentially
stressful situations. Counselling services are routinely swamped by people seeking help for such stress-related problems as insomnia, headaches, panic attacks and depression. But much of this exam stress is controllable. By understanding where it comes from, we can learn to make our nervous energy work for us rather than against us.
Anxiety is a fear reaction which we experience whenever we interpret a particular person, event or situation as posing a threat to us in some way.
This threat may be based on realistic or on imaginary fears. For example, if you are a passenger ina speeding car under the control of a drunken driver, then you have a valid reason to be anxious about your safety. But on other occassions, the anxiety which we experience may be completely disproportionate to the realistic danger involved.
To illustrate, some people may freeze in terror when they see a harmless spider in the shower. Here, the fear is caused by the belief that spiders are unpleasant or dangerous rather than by the actual threat posed by the spider itself.
Anxiety affects how we feel, think and behave. To begin with, it can produce an unpleasant sensation of bodily tension as well as feelings of agitation and panic. Next, anxiety hampers our thinking and decision-making skills. An anxious student may not perceive an important phrase (e.g.
‘compare and contrast’) in an exam question because his of her concentration beam has narrowed due to nervousness. Perhaps the best way to counteract this problem is to underline key words to ensure maximum focus. Finally, anxiety can affect the tempo of our behaviour. For example, it may speed up our writing so that it becomes illegible.
A certain amount of anxiety arousal is necessary before any important performance in order to energise our bodies. Therefore, you should never worry about having a pounding heart on the day of an exam. Instead, you should say to yourself ‘Good! My heartbeat shows that my body is fired up and ready for action!’
Exam anxiety can arise from discrepancies between the conditions under which we study and those in which we are tested. You may like to study in a familiar place, with a cup of coffee by you side and your books or notes piled high on your desk - perhaps evensoothed by the comforting sound of your favourite background music! Consider the conditions under which you will be examined: a silent but crowded hall with no background music, no coffee and worse of all, no notes beside you! Is it any wonder that your mind triggers an alarm response when it notices this stark contrast between your study and exam conditions?
An alarm response is also contageous! What do most students do when they receive their exam paper? Curiously, they tend to take a quick glance at the emotional reactions of their classmates to the paper - and if they detect fear, then panic spreads like wild-fire throughout the exam hall - but please don’t test this observation for yourself.
To summarise, be glad of the fact that your body becomes energised at the prospect of doing an exam. But you should reduce ‘discrepancy anxiety’ by studying as often as possible under exam-like conditions, e.g. checking what you can remember about a topic without consulting your summary notes.
How to control your anxiety about exams:
Students cope with exam anxiety in many different ways. Some try to convince themselves that exams are not worth worrying about. Although this attitude is helpful, it does not indicate what to do if anxiety strikes.
Other students hope that anxiety will go away if it is ignored.
Unfortunately, this view is counter-productive because ‘bottled up’ anxiety will always express itself later. A third way of coping with exam anxiety is to make excuses in advance (e.g. ‘my lecturers were useless’ or ‘I haven’
t opened a book, I know I’m going to fail’). These excuses are often accompanied by self-defeating actions which sabotage students’ own performances, e.g. avoiding studying until the last minute so that the poor performance can be attributed to the lack of time to prepare properly.
Dealing with exam anxiety:
1. Look at exams as challenges rather than as threats - as opportunities to
show what you know or have learned rather than as tests of what you do not know.
2. Establish control over the exam situation - equip yourself with knowledge
about the nature and location of the exam - visit the exam hall in advance, note the layout and atmosphere. Ignore what other people do in the exam - do not look around when the papers are handed out or pay attention to students who request extra paper. Remember, it is the quality not the quantity of the answer that attracts good marks.
Discuss your problems with a member of the academic staff and / or with a counsellor in your university. Asking for professional helps is an important step in solving any problem.
Extracts from Managing Your Own Learning at University: A Practical Guide:
Prof. Aidan P. Moran. U.C.D.
