Body agitation up, test performance down
November 7th, 2009
While I was in the midst of editing my book, a bright high school senior named Jamal came to see me. Anxiously, he asked me to help him raise his SAT scores by 200.
"Tests make me tense!"
As Jamal spoke, his right leg bounced up and down rapidly, his shoulders tensed and rose almost to his ears, and his speech accelerated like a car with a jammed gas pedal. Several times while he spoke, he held his breath. “Just talking about the test makes me nervous,” he said anxiously. “I feel like I’m flipping out right now. This is what happened to me on the SAT.”
Is he right? Wrong.
Jamal believed that remembering the test was making him nervous. In fact, all the nervous things he was doing with his body were causing his anxiety: bouncing his legs, tensing his shoulders, holding his breath. His body made his mind nervous, not his memories.
This is a very common misconception. Most people think that only their mind is working on the exam.
Not so.
Since your body is one of the three key players on your team, all of your body is in the room and engaged while you take a test. If you want to perform at your best, then all of you, not just your brain, has to be fully present and supporting the process.
If you are like most people, you are not too aware of your body throughout the day, unless you’re in pain or you feel sick.
So, you need to learn to recognize the signals when the body starts becoming agitated. The signs. The symptoms.
On p. 38, as part of Chapter Four: How to Calm Down, I lay out a list of common body signals. Go through them. Check all that apply. Start paying attention.
Awareness of when you are not calm is the first step in the process of reducing test anxiety. Only when you are aware can you apply the tools to actually calm yourself down.
