Level Three. Stress it Out.

Level Three. Stress it Out.

By Michelle Lloyd.

They dreaded it. They feared it. It was not discussed by his family for fear of stressing him out. Exams were the thing of hushed whispers, muted tones and defiant but desperate looks.

New One had listened to the details of what an assessment meant and he had to say that he was not sure that so much emphasis should be put upon it.  At school, New One had been told that exams were not everything and that idea he believed applied to the fact that if he was less tense then surely he would do better.

That was the idea but as many good ideas went, they were far easier in thought than practice. New One tried not to think about it, stress would start to seep in though and before he knew it, exams were the only subject of his thoughts.

It had started to interrupt his revision, the what if scenarios would creep about him and put him off doing his work. Instead New One walked himself through horrific scene after scene in which one time he went into the exam and had forgotten everything and in another he had written all the wrong answers to the questions and it was too late to do anything about it. Every one of these scenarios left him demoralised and confused.

None of this anxiety was helping New One. Seeing his distress his parents decided to do something to aid him and they found a book that had helped them in their hours of exam need.

At first New One did not think it could help at all, he felt that little could the one book achieve. It was only after another failed attempt at revision and as the exam was getting ever closer that New One felt he had nothing to lose.

The tips were memory based and suited to different types of learners. If you were a visual learner you could use the section adapted to those memory techniques, but there were other categories for varied learning processes. New One quickly did the quiz at the beginning of the book and then found his own learning by memory section.

Putting small, simple but significant tips in place meant that New One found his revision quickly got back on track. Techniques such as using the same pen, smelling a similar scent as he studied and writing down short notes of what he had learnt, all helped to strengthen his memory and his confidence.

It was useful and positive progress that a bit of memory aid could give and instead of stress it, New One would Stress it Out of himself and thereby be the better for it.