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6.8 Test Taking & Test Anxiety

Questions to consider:

  • What are the differences between test prep and taking the actual test?
  • What can you do on test day to increase your confidence and success?
  • What should you know about test anxiety?

Once you are practicing good study habits, you will be better prepared for actual test taking. Since studying and test taking are both part of learning, honing your skills in one will help you in the other.

Probably the most obvious differences between your preparation for an exam and the actual test itself are your level of urgency and the time constraints. A slight elevation in your stress level can be OK for testing—it keeps you focused and on your game when you need to bring up all the information, thinking, and studying to show what you have learned. Properly executed, test preparation mixed in with a bit of stress can significantly improve your actual test-taking experience.

Preparation vs. Actual Test

You can replicate the effective sense of urgency an actual test produces by including timed writing into your study sessions. You don’t need all of your study time to exactly replicate the test, but you would be well served to find out the format of the exam in advance and practice the skills you’ll need to use for the various test components. On one early exam in history, Stuart learned the prof was going to include several short-answer essay questions—one for each year of the time period covered. Stuart set up practice times to write for about 15 to 20 minutes on significant events from his notes because he estimated that would be about how much time he could devote out of the hour-long testing session to write one or two required short-answer questions. He would write a prompt from his notes, set a timer, and start writing. If you are ready and you have practiced and know the material, 20 minutes is adequate to prepare, draft, and revise a short response.

Likewise, in a math exam, you will need to know what kinds of problems you will have to solve and to what extent you will need to show your computational work on the exam. If you are able to incorporate this sort of timed problem-solving into your study time, you will be more prepared and confident when you actually come to the exam. Making yourself adhere to a timed session during your study can help. It puts a sense of urgency on you, and it will help you to find out what types of problems you need to practice.

Leveraging Study Habits for Test Prep

In your mind, you probably know what you need to do to be prepared for tests. Occasionally, something may surprise you, like an emphasis on a concept you considered unimportant or a different presentation of a familiar problem. But those should be exceptions. You can take all your well-honed study habits to get ready for exams. Here is a checklist for study and test success for your consideration:

Figure 6.12 Study habits for test preparation.
1
 Read All Assigned Lessons

Prepare to make the most of your class time with instructors and other students.
2 Attend All Classes

You cannot interact with the material and the others in your class if you are not there.
3 Take Notes During Each Class

Even if you are uncertain about the lesson’s topics or importance, take notes so that you remember what was covered.
4 Review And Improve Notes

Do this within 24 hours. Memory studies show that we have to work with information quickly or we’ll start to forget it.
5 Study Regularly

Work at least one hour per week for every hour in class; repetition and frequency are important factors for studying.
6 Re-read Significant Text Passages

This helps build your memory and better prepares you for class and tests.
7 Review with Classmates

You each receive the benefit of the other’s perspective on the material.
8 Take Authentic Practice Tests

Use study guides or sample tests to gauge what you really know and what you need to work on.
9 Practice Timed Writing

Timing is essential in most test situations. Practice can help you manage the pressure and ensure you use the time effectively.
10 Get Enough Sleep Every Night

Sleep impacts memory, performance, energy, and our ability to handle stress and the unexpected (both common in test situations).

Read this list with each separate class in mind and check off the items you already do. If you always take the success steps—congratulations! They are not a guarantee, but doing the steps mindfully will give you a nice head start.

Establishing Realistic Expectations for Test Situations

Would you expect to make a perfect pastry if you have never learned how to bake? Or paint a masterpiece if you’ve never tried to work with paints and brushes? Probably not. But often we expect ourselves to perform at much higher levels of achievement than that for which we have actually prepared.

Realistic continuous improvement is a better plan because people who repeatedly attempt challenges for which they have not adequately prepared and understandably fail often start moving toward the goal in frustration or they simply quit. This does not mean you settle for mediocre grades or refrain from your challenges. It means you become increasingly aware of yourself and your current state and potential future. Know yourself, know your strengths and weaknesses, and be honest with yourself about your expectations.

Prioritizing Time Surrounding Test Situations

Keep in mind that you do not have any more or less time than anyone else. You can only use the time everyone gets wisely and realistically. Exams in college classes are important, but they are not the only significant events you have in your classes. In fact, everything leading up to the exam, the exam itself, and the post-exam activities are all one large continuum.

If your instructor conducts some sort of pre-exam summary or prep session, make sure to attend. These can be invaluable. If this instructor does not provide that sort of formal exam prep, create your own with a group of classmates or on your own.

Strategies on Test Day and After

Test Day

Once you get to the exam session, try your best to focus on nothing but the exam. This can be very difficult with all the distractions in our lives.

Arriving to class

Do not let yourself be sidetracked right at the end. Beyond the preparation we have discussed, give yourself some more advantages on the actual test day:

  • Get to the testing location a few minutes early so you can settle into your place and take a few relaxing breaths.
  • Do not let other classmates interrupt your calmness at this point.
  • Just get to your designated place, take out whatever supplies and materials you are allowed to have, take a few deep breaths, and calm your mind.

Taking the test

Once the instructor begins the test:

  • Listen carefully for any last-minute oral directions that may have changed some detail on the exam, such as the timing or the content of the questions.
  • As soon as you receive the exam sheet or packet, make a quick scan over the entire test.
  • Do not spend a lot of time on this initial glance, but make sure you are familiar with the layout and what you need to do.
  • Using this first review, decide how you will allocate your available time for each section.
  • Then for each section be sure you read the section directions very carefully so you do not miss an important detail.
  • Answer every required question on the exam. Even if you do not complete each one, you may receive some credit for partial answers.
  • Read the entire question carefully if you think you know what the stem (the introduction of the choices) says and read all the choices.
  • Skip really difficult questions or ones where your brain goes blank. Then you can go back and concentrate on those skipped ones later after you have answered the majority of the questions confidently. Sometimes a later question will trigger an idea in your mind that will help you answer the skipped questions.
  • Allow yourself a few minutes at the end of the exam to review your answers. Make sure you have completed the entire test.

After the test

As you leave the exam room, the last thing you may want to think about is the test. You probably have numerous other assignments, projects, and life obligations to attend to, especially if you pushed some of those off to study for this completed exam. Give yourself some space from this exam, but only for the duration of the time when your instructor is grading your exam. Once you have your results, study them—whether you did really well (Go, you!) or not as well as you had hoped (Keep your spirits up!). Both scenarios hold valuable information if you will use it.

When you receive your grade:

  • Reflect upon what you did to get ready for the test.
  • If you received a good grade, remember what you did to prepare for the test so that you can replicate your actions for future tests.
  • If you were not satisfied with your test score, what do you need to change? Study strategies, effort, amount of time spent studying, etc.

Test Anxiety

Image of student with hands raised to head in anxiety as she studies her laptop screen.
Figure 6.13 Text anxiety can be a common occurrence, but you can use strategies to manage it.

Test anxiety is very real. You may know this firsthand. Almost everyone gets a little nervous before a major exam, in the same way most people get slightly anxious meeting a new potential date or undertaking an unfamiliar activity. And in most situations, testing included, that reasonable level of nervous anticipation can be a good thing—enhancing your focus and providing you with a bit of bravado to get you through a difficult time.

Test anxiety, however, can cause us to doubt ourselves so severely that we underperform or overcompensate to the point that we do not do well on the exam. Do not despair; you can still succeed if you suffer from test anxiety. The first step is to understand what it is and what it is not, and then to practice some simple strategies to cope with your anxious feelings relative to test taking. Whatever you do, do not use the label “test anxiety’ to keep you from your dreams of completing your education and pursuing whatever career you have your eyes on. You are bigger than any anxiety.

Using Strategies to Manage Test Anxiety

You need to work hard to control test anxiety so it does not take an unhealthy hold on you every time you face a test situation. One of the best ways to control test anxiety is to be prepared for the exam. You can control that part. You can also learn effective relaxation techniques including controlled breathing, visualization, and meditation. Some of these practices work well even in the moment: at your test site, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and smile—just bringing positive thoughts into your mind can help you meet the challenges of taking an exam without anxiety taking over.

Quick Quiz 6.8

  1. How can practicing good study habits before a test help improve your performance during the exam?
  2. What are some effective strategies for managing test anxiety?

Summary

In this chapter, we learned that reading and notetaking are major elements of college studying and learning. The expectation in college is that you read considerable amounts of text for each subject. You may encounter reading situations, such as professional journal articles and long textbook chapters, that are more difficult to understand than texts you have read previously. As you progress through your college courses, you can employ reading strategies to help you complete your college reading assignments. Likewise, you will take notes in college that need to be complete so you can study and recall the information you learn in lectures and lab sessions. With so much significant information that you need to collect, study, and recall for your college courses, you need to be deliberate in your reading and notetaking. Also, studying and taking tests will always be a large part of college, so learning now to do these well can only help you be more successful. Experts provide us with many tools, techniques, and ideas to use when we determine how best to study, use our memories effectively, and prepare to take exams. You can help yourself by taking these guidelines seriously and tracking your progress. If one strategy works better for you in some classes and another is more suited to a different course, keep that in mind when you begin to study. Use all the resources available to you, and you will be well on your way to success in college.

Works Cited

License

SAC Learning Frameworks Copyright © by Deanna Lauer. All Rights Reserved.

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