Stressed....

[GenkiGirl]

Hi...
I am fishing for either encouragement or a good kick in the butt. I am writing my first exam in less than a week... I don't feel as if I am ready (only getting 75% on practice exams...not even onto old exams yet) BUt for some reason am procrastinating all of my time away. When you get into a slump like this what do you do?? I have only studied a few hours in the last few days....and I think I'm getting worse... :-?

Please....any kind of help would be greatly appreciated...

GG

ps... what kind of marks should I be getting on those stupid practice tests....I am expecting the real exam to be harder...but...how MUCH harder...

:cry:

[JO]

You definitely need to kick your butt! Seriously, what I do in these situations is I take an entire week-end off like 4 weeks before the exam to get completely out of it. This way I get much more productive once back into it and I have enough energy for the last push.

See, you're probably too close to your exam to do this..But just ask yourself : "Do I really want to be studying this CRAP again in 6 months?" The answer usually gives an extra push..

As far as scores, 75% is excellent on practice exams, especially if you don't take good answers on guesses into account. The exam will be harder, granted but you only need to PASS, not score a 10 and I promise you you'll pass if you get 75% of the answers on the real thing. There were smaller exams in the old system where this was not necessarily true but I don't think it is the case now in the new syllabus.

So my advice to you: Focus yourself mentally, promise yourself a treat for right after the exam and use it as a motivation. Go run, take a break every once in a while to watch a movie, anything! But don't let go, you're too close to quit.

[bg23516]

Tell me about it.... I studied 300-350 hours already for exam 2, and I would like to get more in, but stuff keeps popping up. Hell, I'm graduating college in 3 days. I have finals tommorrow, then my parents arrive, and graduation is all weekend.

Argh. I guess tommorrow afternoon I'll have to put in some good time.

75% sounds pretty good on a practice. Are these previous exams from the last 4 sittings?

[GenkiGirl]

Wow....I guess that I am not as stressed as you... I am starting to think I am just over reacting.. Anyway..the practice exams are just the ones in the Averbach manual...not the old ones yet...I am going to start them tomorrow.

Good luck to you... but with that much study time you must be in GREAT shape :)

GG :-?

[Gandalf]

How about encouragement and a good kick in the butt?

Good luck on the exam.

Make sure you do the actual exams from 2000-2001 before your exam. They're probably the best problems available to you now, and you don't want to be surprised on the real exam by the sorts of problems you encounter.

Don't worry too much on how you do on those prior actual exams. Even if you try to take them under exam conditions (no notes, work straight through for the specified time), adrenaline levels at the exam will be different. And when you evaluate how you did on them, remember that on the real exam you'll be guessing on the ones you don't know (don't leave anything blank!!) and will get some points that way.

What you don't want to do is decide afterwards that you need to learn how to do each problem from the prior tests that you got wrong. It's counterproductive to try to assimilate so much disjoint info at once. If you see a type of problem that consistently gave you trouble, maybe you can master that. But if you try to learn them all, they'll all be too hazy.

Build on your strengths. There should be some core block of knowledge where you should feel 80% confident you'll nail any problem they ask. And others where you're 60% confident, and others at 20% or less. Try to get those 60% areas up to 70% or 80%, or move some 50% areas up to 60%. This close to the exam, it's hard to do much with the 20% areas.

Just my opinion on how to study. It's been ages since I had to take one of these things.