What helps you to relax when taking an exam?

[superior olive]

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Hello All!

I'm retaking my MCAT this coming Thursday, the 10th of July. I scored much lower than expected given my practice AAMC exams and Kaplan exams, and it is pretty much entirely due to getting anxious during the test. The closer I approach the date, the more I notice that on my practice quizzes/tests that I miss out on things because I do not 1)read the question stem carefully, 2)read the answer choices carefully, and 3)switch from the right answer to the wrong answer because I doubt myself.

What does everyone do before & during tests to help them to relax and stay focused? I take little breaks to breathe and stretch out, but I still end up feeling a little scatter brained. 😛

 

[RySerr21]

for me it was as simple as telling myself that I was just taking another practice test. i convinced myself of that and I didn't freak out or get nervous, i just continued to breathe and chug away.

 

[RPedigo]

I had test anxiety in the beginning of Physical Sciences and eventually went back and changed a bunch of answers after I had calmed down. What helped to calm me down is getting a rather involved MCAT problem correct, and telling myself "I am prepared for this exam. If I think this is hard, what do you think everyone else around the country taking this exam, many of whom are less prepared than myself, is thinking? I studied, I know the material, and I'm not going to let this test beat me." And then I felt better after my little pep talk and ended up doing alright. Good luck on your next exam day! 👍

 

[ecoli]

I have yet to take a real exam (Aug 5th) but in general, I just try to focus on the problems at hand, and forget about what the test means and how important it is. For the day of the exam, all that matters are the questions being asked at the time. Take the exam out of context, and it's no more important than any other exam.

 

[unsung]

I tend to panic if right away on the test there's something involved/long that I *know* there's a way to calculate a specific answer for it, but I know I'm doing something wrong & can't match one of the answer choices.

So what's helped with that is I'll start out on PS (& usually BS) with the discretes. That way it's like a nice warm up and they don't take long to do, so even if I have to skip one, I don't feel like I wasted a lot of time on it. Once I know I've gotten some problems right, I calm down more.