Test Prep Books/Effective Study Skills for Test Taking Anxiety

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.

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 »

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 »

With this post I’d like to address the questions that come across my desk– by email from readers of my book, and at the talks that I give to various audiences (parents, students, teachers, etc).

 

 

Today’s question is:  How do I get rid of my anxiety before an exam?

Answer: You don’t get “rid” of anxiety. A little bit of anxiety has been shown (in over a hundred years of research) to be a good thing. Remember the “Yerkes-Dodson curve” (see illustration).  Yerkes and Dodson were two psychologists who showed, at the beginning of the 20th century, that there’s a direct relationship between stress and performance. Too much or too little stress and performance suffers. You Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve recently started coaching three very different people who have exactly the same issue with tests: they’re all afraid of failing.  To be accurate, they’re all afraid of failing again.

Each of them (a high school, college and graduate student) had a bad experience in the past with a test—one didn’t finish in time, one didn’t get the score she wanted and one actually failed.  I’m using the word “bad experience” instead of “failure.”  While every one of us has had a bad experience with a test none of us is a failure because of it.

Following what I wrote in my last post: when you have a bad experience you have two choices with how you are going to hold that experience.  Choice #1: You say to yourself, “Oh, no,  it happened before and it’s going to happen again. For sure. No way I’m going to Read the rest of this entry »

I recently had a Skype session with a client in Asia. He is preparing for the GMAT as he wants to go to business school in the US.  A very bright guy who suffers terribly from performance anxiety.  We made great progress in the Skype session– I was able to observe and point out to him the various things he was thinking and doing that were adding to his stress. now this is a great example of why some people might need personal coaching besides reading the workbook. okay, back to this GMAT guy.  I taught him the tools he needs for reducing the stress so he could improve his performance. They are all based on the nine core tools in the book. All I do is tweak them, fine tune them for his specific needs. The difference, during the session, itself, was noticeable.  Great!  But wait. Now comes the next important part. 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 »

Today a college student came to see me for the first time. She is having a lot of trouble with tests. She studies hard, but a few days before the test a mounting self-doubt takes over and by the night before a test her head is whirling around, she’s tossing and turning in anxiety and she can’t sleep. She’s consumed with thoughts that she won’t pass, and that doing poorly will shoot her chances to get into a good graduate school.  As she spoke I noticed a few things…..

Read the rest of this entry »

I have good news and, well, not-so-good news for you test takers.

Let’s get the not-so-good news over with. Here’s the deal: we cannot choose most of the tests we face in life.

Now, here’s the good one. Drum roll, please…

We can choose how we’re going to face all those tests.

Are we going to have a miserable experience, crumble under the pressure, run away, or avoid challenges altogether?

Or are we going to find the strength and inner resources to rise to the challenges and fully actualize our potential?

Read the rest of this entry »

I came across an article about a successful program designed for at-risk students and dropouts working toward their GED.  It’s an 18 month program in which students learn academic, personal, leadership and vocational skills through hands-on-activities.

Karen Bryant, who mentors students even after graduation, said she credits the success of the program to a relationship built on trust and respect with her students. Many of the students have remained friends of Bryant over the years.

In the ‘confidence’ leg of my 3-legged stool performance model I explore into the relationship between ‘trust’ and ‘confidence.’

Read the rest of this entry »