Test Prep Books/Effective Study Skills for Test Taking Anxiety

Test Success! comprehensively covers the one area effectively neglected by the test preparation industry:  test stress. Yet stress over tests, and the anxiety tests cause in students and other test takers, is a prevalent cause of poor test performance.

There is an known relationship between stress and performance. It’s called the Yerkes-Dodson law, after a study done by two psychologists in 1908. They proved that if there is too much or too little stress performance will be compromised,  They also showed that just the right amount of stress optimizes performance. You need a little stress (“juice”) to perform well.

In Test Success! Dr. Bernstein gives readers an easy-to-follow guidebook so they can learn to recognize stress before it builds to the point when it starts to hurt performance. This part of the book (awareness-building), is woven throughout the three main chapters of the book, which address being calm, remaining confident and staying focused.

Being calm, confident and focused is the “3-legged stool” — the platform for successful test performance. The reader learns to recognize when he or she is not calm, when confidence is slipping, and when distractions are taking over.

Once this awareness is built the reader can learn to use the simple, yet profoundly effective nine tools to reduce the stress and get it to an optimal level. These nine tools — three for being calm, three for remaining confident and three for staying focused– can be used while the person is preparing for the test and during the test itself.

Most readers find Dr. Bernstein’s work helps them far beyond the exam room.  “These are tools I can use in all kinds of situations,” one high school student discovered. “Even dating!” he added. “They’re tools for life,” said an attorney who finally passed her state’s Bar exam after four unsuccessful attempts.

Towards the end of the book Dr. B provides special chapters for parents and teachers. While it is helpful for both groups to know how to handle test stress when their child or student is experiencing it, Dr. B encourages both parents and teachers to use the tools themselves. “Testing is stressful for everyone,” says Dr. B. “Often, when one’s child or student is stressed out by a test, the teacher or parent also gets stressed out” In addition, teachers and parents must be vigilant the stresses they create when they are anxious about a student’s or child’s test performance. This puts an extra pressure on the test taker that certainly raises his or her stress level considerably.”

The book is filled with examples, exercises charts, fill-in-the-blanks, and questionnaires.