Test Prep Books/Effective Study Skills for Test Taking Anxiety

Had a most stimulating visit this afternoon to College Track at  their East Palo Alto site, where I met with their inspired site director, Sharifa Wilson, their ACT trainer, Ed Harris and College Track’s Director of New Initiatives, Geraldine Sonobe.  College Track is a growing program that works with under-resourced high school students to give them the nurturing they need to get into college. After the meeting I was buzzing with possibility.

I got on train to San Francisco where I met a young Israeli, Shai Magzimof,who works in the game development business. We had an animated talk about video games and my developing them as vehicles to train students in stress reduction (I know, it sounds like an oxymoron).  On the train Shai introduced me to a few games. I found them mildly amusing, especially the challenge of keeping myself calm as the game was pushing my nervous system in the direction of getting over-amped. But of course, I had my usual question: what’s really going on here? (usual answer: not much).   Shai was on his way to hear Fred Markus speak at a meeting of game developers at Dolby Studios in San Francisco, and I asked him if I could tag along. Read the rest of this entry »

The web is offers an infinite number of valuable suggestion for students. The latest is from a blogger named Jannelle Martel who shares her thoughts on reducing test anxiety. She suggests three stages: strategize, plan and practice. Good and comprehensive. I’d add one more thing: learn how to keep yourself calm.  Janelle is covering two of the “legs” in our three legged stool model: confidence and focus. To keep things balanced we need the third leg: calm. Staying calm during the study phase and calm on the test. You can get a thorough explanation and useful tools right on this website. Use the tools and let me know what has helped you and what questions you may have. Thank you Jannelle!

Every spiritual tradition teaches stopping.  It’s a way to break habits, a way to let space into your otherwise overcrowded life, a way to restore balance.

So this is my break.

I am at a remarkable retreat called vaidyagrama, a healing village, in the south of India. Until January 10, I will be away from computers and emails and telephones.

During times of retreat we can reflect on what has happened and what is to come.  But mostly, we can consider the great gifts we have, right now. 2011 was an extraordinary year. 2012 holds many promises.

I wish you all a happy, healthy New Year. I hope it is off to a good start in the direction that will most bring balance and fulfillment into your life.

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 »

As I write this I am in south India at an Ayurvedic retreat.  Ayurveda is the oldest system of healing arts known to man. It dates back thousands of years to the writing of the Vedas, or ancient texts.

One of the pillars of this remarkably comprehensive and far-reaching system is to establish and maintain balance of body, mind and spirit. Since this corresponds so directly with the work I do as a stress psychologist I want to take a moment, at year’s end, review this foundational aspect of good health.  Let’s start out with  Read the rest of this entry »

After the days have gotten shorter and the nights longer we move through the winter solstice. The days begin to lengthen. More and more light comes in, slowly, little by little.

Christmas and Hanukah celebrate light:  Jesus, the light of the world, and the Hanukah, the eternal light in the holy temple.

What does this light mean to us?  It is the light of our spirit, the sustaining force that gives us each the illumination and power to clear Read the rest of this entry »

According to a new study, mild activities, like chewing gum, before a test can be helpful in improving test performance.

Comparing the effects of chewing gum before or during various testing situations, researchers found that performance on a battery of cognitive tasks improved for those who chewed gum for five minutes before a test, compared with those who didn’t

A report on the study said that scientists “believe the benefits of chewing 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 »

When I was a young child — 9 years old to be exact– my parents sent me on a plane, alone, to visit my beloved aunt in Florida. It was exciting to travel by myself and I was treated royally by the flight crew.

Somewhere along the way the plane got into a big storm and started bouncing around terribly. This was in the days of prop planes, much smaller than the ones today and much more vulnerable to bad weather. The turbulence got worse and worse and the plane was now getting thrown around in the sky, People started screaming. I was so scared. My aunt said that when I got off the plane in Miami and ran into her arms she saw that I had bitten clear through my bottom lip.

This event had a terrible effect on me for years every time I went into an airplane . For days Read the rest of this entry »