The pressure of tests

The pressure of tests

There is so much pressure before, during and after tests but there are strategies you can use to help you.  Some people feel pressure more and some people feel it less and different people cope with it in different ways.

Before the test you are under pressure of having to revise as hard as you can and are constantly worried that it’s not enough and worried about what questions you have to face in the test.  If you work hard all the time in your course and make sure you understand everything then you might feel less pressure about revising, because you already know a lot of it.  But some people naturally worry more than others and feel under pressure even if they have studied a lot. 

During the test you are pressured by the time you have to do the test in and worried about what the best way to answer the question is.  One way to help with the time pressure is to work out how long you have for each question and try to spend the right amount of time on each question.  However it is difficult if you get stuck on a difficult question and then you have to rush to complete the rest of the test.  Some people find it easy to remember what they have learned under pressure in a test but some people get very nervous and cannot remember everything even if they have studied it.  It is also important to read the question carefully as you can go wrong and lose marks if you are nervous and misread it or assume the wrong meaning of the question.  It helps if you have done some practice questions when you are revising because then you are familiar with the way the questions are written and you can practice answering them quicker.

There is also pressure after the test because you worry about whether you got the more tricky questions right and whether you got enough to pass.  It is not a good idea to worry about the test after it is done because you cannot change it but I think most people cannot help worrying a bit anyway.  Some people like to talk to their classmates about what answers they gave in the test but I do not like to do that because I get worried in case I missed some points or got answers wrong and then feel more pressure.  In fact the other people might be wrong and I might be right but I tend to worry that I am wrong. 

Some people feel the pressure of tests more strongly than others but everyone can help themselves cope if they study hard before the test and do practice questions.  After the test you should try not to feel pressure and try not to worry too much about the result until you get it.  If you did well you wasted time worrying for nothing and if you did badly worrying cannot change that.