- Joined
- Jan 11, 2009
- Messages
- 351
- Reaction score
- 8
I've always had varying degrees of test taking anxiety, and I feel like in medical school it's getting worse. I tend to to very well on quizzes but then on the exam have a rather lackluster result. I always pass without issue--in fact I don't think I've had an exam this year that I was seriously concerned I might fail--so it's kind of frustrating because I go into each exam pretty confident that I'll pass but also pretty confident that I won't impress myself with my score, however well prepared I am and however well I've done on practice exams/quizzes.
The big difference between the quizzes and exams seems to be my anxiety levels and the sort of errors I make. On quizzes, I'm usually just a little tense and, if I get a question wrong, it's because I didn't know the answer. On exams, on the other hand, I get physically anxious and a good percentage of questions I miss seem to be more because of not thinking clearly/stupid mistakes.
I've tried a few different strategies over the course of the year and none of them have really helped, and when I've approached faculty members/academic affairs about my concern their answer is usually some variation on "well, you're not failing" or "don't worry--you don't need honors first year to get a good residency." That may be true, but it is frustrating on a personal level to feel like I'm always under-performing and also having these issues on regular exams doesn't bode well for the boards next year.
Any suggestions would be welcome.
The big difference between the quizzes and exams seems to be my anxiety levels and the sort of errors I make. On quizzes, I'm usually just a little tense and, if I get a question wrong, it's because I didn't know the answer. On exams, on the other hand, I get physically anxious and a good percentage of questions I miss seem to be more because of not thinking clearly/stupid mistakes.
I've tried a few different strategies over the course of the year and none of them have really helped, and when I've approached faculty members/academic affairs about my concern their answer is usually some variation on "well, you're not failing" or "don't worry--you don't need honors first year to get a good residency." That may be true, but it is frustrating on a personal level to feel like I'm always under-performing and also having these issues on regular exams doesn't bode well for the boards next year.
Any suggestions would be welcome.