Test Prep Books/Effective Study Skills for Test Taking Anxiety

You go tutors!

Every day I receive Google alerts about stories and statistics regarding test anxiety, test scores and test preparation. I like to keep current with what’s going on in the field.

Here’s one that came across my desk today:  It’s from “Janice R.” who runs a tutoring service in Palm Coast, Florida. Janice offers a good roadmap for students: familiarize yourself with the test, do some solid preparation and get ready for test day.

How often we overlook the essentials!

I applaud Janice R for getting the word out and offering what she can to students who may not be getting the guidance they need and deserve. Keep up the good work!

Janice R is a tutor at WyzAnt.com. Check out their website. While I am not personally familiar their services and therefore can’t yet recommend them, I definitely am intrigued to find out more, and suggest you look them over too.

Take a moment to breathe

New Year’s greetings to everyone, far and wide!  May it be a year of peace, health and prosperity for all.

Since the beginning of a new year is usually filed with resolutions– which are really thinly disguised attempts to change habits — I’m going to begin the year with a series of posts on habits.

Habits determine the quality of our lives. And they are fundamental if you want to reduce your stress around taking tests.

Life is made up of habits. Think about it. As you are reading this you are breathing (whether you are aware of your breath or not).  As Read the rest of this entry »

A young girl was brought to me because she was failing in math. Her parents were concerned that she wouldn’t get admitted to the competitive middle school to which she was applying. And there was also another potential problem: the interview. The girl, I’ll call her Amy, tended to shut down with strangers.

Sure enough, she wouldn’t talk to me.

OK, I thought, now what? I saw Amy eyeing a set of colored markers Read the rest of this entry »

Follow your coach's direction

I’m in NY for a conference organized by the NY Times on “Schools for Tomorrow.” I met yesterday with Alexandra Zabriskie, a top-notch NY tutor for the SAT and ACT (and school subjects too).  Alex talked about coaching her students to take practice tests under the practice conditions, in other words, when it’s possible, to take at least one practice test  Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Joy Magtanong-Madrid

Yesterday my wife and I had the distinct pleasure of attending the Commencement ceremonies for the University of the Pacific, Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry. One of the students who graduated, now Joy Magtanong-Madrid, DDS., was a student several years ago in a post-baccalaureate program in which I was the performance coach.  There were 12 students, like Joy, who had all recently received their bachelor’s degree, and had wanted to go on to dental school, but didn’t get in anywhere they applied. They then applied for the post-bac program, which was a year to get their grades up and improve their scores on the DAT.  What an amazing group of people!  I loved coaching them. Why? Read the rest of this entry »

I’d like to share with you the experiences of two students: one who is working at succeeding and the other who is not.

The first student — I’ll call her Aly — is determined to score well in her college level courses and is doing what’s necessary  to make that happen. The second — I’ll call her Erika — wants to score well but she’s often distracted and her grades are sub-par.

What’s going on?  Aly is focused, Erika is not. Focus means having a goal and taking actions that get you to it. That’s what Read the rest of this entry »

Need help? Confide in someone.

Recently a student came to see me. She said that she was having great difficulty with the one of the subjects in her medical school program. “I feel like everyone else is getting what’s going on and I’m not.” She was embarrassed to tell anyone she was having difficulty and so pretended that she understood what was going on when, in fact, she did not. This

Read the rest of this entry »

Worrying? Again?

Do you find yourself worrying about an upcoming test? Or, when you are in the middle of an exam answering questions, are you worrying then?

The first thing to know is that it’s normal. Just about everyone worries from time to time.

Second, know this: worrying never solves anything. Anything.  Worrying just breeds more worrying.  Haven’t you noticed that when you continue to worry

Read the rest of this entry »

Appreciate your greatness

It’s well known, in the circles of positive psychology, that expressing appreciation is a powerful tool for improving relationships and performance. Usually we think of expressing appreciation  to someone else– someone who has done something for us or with us, whose contribution we want to acknowledge.

We don’t often think of expressing appreciation to ourselves, about ourselves. In fact, in workshops I offer when we get to this part, people are often stymied. What can I appreciate about myself?

Appreciation means “perceiving value” and “expressing gratitude.”

Read the rest of this entry »

When you hit a wall: grow something slowly. You will break through.

One of the things test stress can do is get you to feel like you can’t do anything. You feel like you’ve hit a wall.  Everything looks too big, too insurmountable, too daunting.  You shut down and collapse. Some people  spin in place. The talk in your head sounds like this:  There’s too much to do, I’ll never be able to accomplish what I want to, I won’t do well… on and on. [If this happens to you I'm sure you know what I'm talking about and could supply your own script].

This kind of talk is, literally, self-defeating. The way things work is on a

Read the rest of this entry »