Handling examination tension. (Advice for IJMB students)

As exams begin to approach, tension becomes quite an inevitable feeling for
students. Your ability to handle exam tension will greatly affect the outcome and
performance at the end of the day. Tension as we well know has to do with mental
worry or emotional strain that makes natural relaxed behavior impossible. In other
words, the more tensed-up you are, the less relaxed you’ll be in the exam hall and
this will have great effects on how much of what you’ve read you remember and
how you answer questions. Handling tension is therefore a skill you’d really not want
to do without as a student. In other to help you develop this skill, we enumerated
from our experience and the experiences of some interviewed first-class students
five time-tested tips for handling tension in exam conditions:

1. Ensure you make hay while the sun shines:
More than 70% of the students who are usually most tensed-up as exams draw
closer when asked will tell you that the main reason for the worry and anxiety was
that they were scared that they hadn’t prepared enough. In my article on 7 ways to
revise for exams, I enumerated seven tips that have helped me and so many others
make the most of the ‘injury time’ before exams. In other to feel more relaxed about
your exams, you must prepare adequately beforehand.

2. Stop all major reading at least 30 minutes to the exam time:
The importance of practicing cannot be overemphasized this because so many
students have fallen prey to last-minute confusion and apprehension by just coming
across something they had forgotten to read or some question that posed
problematic to answer before they were called into the exam hall. It’s okay to revise
notes and especially jotted-down points before the exams but trying to take in new
info can be disastrous. Moreover, once your state of mind has been negatively
affected before the exams, even what you already know may prove difficult to
remember.

Also Read: . IJMB past questions and answers

3.Be confident and positive:
‘Be confident and positive.’ Sounds easy but it has been discovered that a great
number of students focus more what the lecturer didn’t teach well or what is so
difficult about the course and so many other negative thoughts and ideas. A
positive attitude is very crucial tool for handling exam tension. Being optimistic and
confident that you’ll remember what you’ve read, you’ll write well and that you’ll
perform well goes a long way in determining the outcome of your exams.

4. Recap what you’ve read:
By ‘recapping what you’ve read’, we are trying lay more emphasis on thinking about
what you’ve studied (trying to remember things you’ve read) and revised as well as
discussing with others about what you’ve read (asking yourselves likely questions).
This helps to refresh your memory much like the way the icons that previously didn’t
display properly on your computer desktop display well when refreshed.

Also Read: . IJMB timetable for February 2016 examination

5. Commit your exams to God in prayer:
A very important tip indeed but usually treated as least important. According to a
popular saying, ‘prayer moves the hand that moves the universe’. This is an
indisputable and proven fact. You will feel much more relaxed about your exams
when you’ve committed them before God in the place of prayer and most especially
if you’ve carried your own responsibility of preparing adequately.
The truth is that a lot of students already start failing when they set their minds in a
negative state of worry, tension, fear and anxiety by not doing what needs to done.
This therefore means that if you can develop this enviable and desirable skill of
handling exam tension, 40 to 50% of your success will be already guaranteed.

You can leave your comments below if you feel this is helpful.