Breaking the Stress Cycle at Exam Time – Part Two

Exams on the way? Is your child facing anxiety, stress and frustration? Are you beginning to feel the same way?

The game of catch-up at year’s end can take a toll on a student… and his or her parents. Falling behind can also lead to discouragement that results in the same problem year after year. Whether students are in elementary or high school, preparing for standardized tests or writing final exams, they need successful study skills and habits to help them focus and stay on track. Oxford Learning recommends the following effective study skills to help students get through the last few months of the school year with confidence and success:

Listen and Hear

• Start every class by making an effort to pay close attention. Whisper a reminder to yourself that you want to understand everything that the teacher says.
• Every five minutes or so, quietly summarize the lesson to yourself.
• Jot notes of the main ideas as you listen. Underline or highlight key words.
• When you don’t understand something, make a note and ask someone to explain it to you later.
• Notice what distracts you in the classroom. Take steps to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. If you find that you’re daydreaming, bring yourself back to task and try to fill in the parts you’ve missed.

Remember What You Hear

• Everyone has a good memory…if it is used properly.
• Take your main idea class notes home every evening and summarize them into point form. At first you may have to use a text or your classroom notes. Eventually, with practice, you’ll be able to remember these details.
• Review these notes to make sure that you understand them within two days and once more before you begin to study for a test.

Ace Your Homework

• Carry a homework planner with you at all times, to every class. Enter homework, projects, tests and assignments as soon as you’re given them. Don’t trust your memory – write it down as soon as the teacher assigns it!
• Choose a comfortable place to do your homework and study. Sorry, lying on the floor, listening to loud music or having the TV on in the background doesn’t cut it!
• Check your homework planner and begin by asking yourself the following questions: What am I supposed to do? When is the assignment due? Where can I get the necessary information? How do I do the assignment?

In our next post, we’ll outline more ways for families to cope by arming students with the tools to succeed through proper exam preparation and simply knowing how to study. Oxford Learning has personalized programs to help any student. To find out more, please click here.

Breaking the Stress Cycle at Exam Time – Part Two

“I freeze up when I write exams! I study hard and think I know my stuff, but I freeze up and get low marks!”

Hundreds of high school students have shared this concern with us over the years When students “freeze,” their low grades do not reflect their true potential. Since the first step in beating something is understanding it, we began to ask students why it was so difficult to overcome “freezing.” Their answers surprised us.

We found that many students who had been exposed to study skills programs were not using these skills because they did not know how to apply them to their own lives. Often when students learn a skill, such as study skills, it is just memorized — not understood.

In order to be effective, study skills must be a new way of thinking! A new way of considering information. A student who truly knows how to study also knows what he or she wants out of school and life.

Students experience difficulty with organization, memory, planning, studying, listening, and writing tests for reasons that cannot be overcome by memorizing a bunch of new rules. The magic of a successful study skills program lies in the way it unlocks the emotional and motivational issues that are blocking success.

Many students arrive at exams in a state of mild anxiety, which grows until the teacher tells them to turn over their papers and begin. The first question looks a little familiar but they don’t remember exactly how to do it, so they go on to the second, promising themselves, “I’ll come back to the first question as soon as I remember.”

The Trouble Begins

Each question looks more and more like a foreign language. Remembering only a little of each, they try to fake it. That is called “freezing.” The struggle to remember actually locks the information farther and farther away. Their struggles “freeze” them up even tighter.

Feelings of fear and apprehension are not the problem! The real problem is that students “freeze” when they ask their memory to recall information that they have learned and filed incorrectly. The way most students file information for retrieval is similar to blindfolding a filing clerk and then asking that clerk to find a very important file.

What would your chances be of getting the correct file? Zero. But this is how most students use their memories. They learn information and then file it in their memories incorrectly. When sitting for an exam, they begin to search frantically for the missing files. When this happens, the memory often does not associate well. Mix a little anxiety in and you get the classic exam “freeze.”

An effective study program will address the emotional and motivational issues that are blocking academic success. The secret to overcoming “freezing” is shifting from a passive mind set (” I’ll just sit here and wait for the teacher to teach me”) to an active process of questioning, summarizing and integrating information.

Here are the procedures for active learning:

• Study Notes: Spend 10 minutes per subject every night and summarize the day’s lessons into study notes. Break the information down into Main Idea, Supporting Details and Sub Details. Make these notes short and in point form, in your own words.
• Review: 48 hours later, review your study notes. Don’t memorize; just make sure you fully understand what they mean and what the information is about. Turn the notes into a story or a complete picture — use visualization if possible.
• Keep Track: Keep a small student day book so that you can keep track of assignments, tests, homework and personal information. Make your entries in class as you get the assignments or test dates and look at your book every night before beginning your study time.
• Learn About Yourself : What things distract you? Noise? Movement? Crowds? When you discover what makes it hard for you to pay attention, make sure you change your environment as much as possible. If noise bothers you, don’t study with a radio on or at the dining room table. Find a quiet place instead.
• Set Long-Range Goals: Stop expecting school to entertain you. When you learn to stop blaming school for not meeting all your expectations and learn to keep your eye on your long-range goals and dreams, you will begin to feel more control and power over your life. Forget about blaming others; it’s your life! Take the responsibility to get the most out of it.

Enjoy!