exams stress

[nitin1]

how do you make your cool or stress free in exams days ?

[Sahil89]

I stop studying :D ya sometimes
Mostly I listen songs.

[nitin1]

lol... a big lol @sahil... hahahahah

[Reverend Jim]

I found that cramming right up to the exam time just got me extra wound up. What worked for me was to stop preparing a few hours before the exam, show up to the exam site an hour early with a cup of coffee and fine some place close by to drink the coffee while perusing anything totally unrelated to the exam.

[nitin1]

but i was asking the time when you are preparing for exams ?

[Ancient Dragon]

I'm happy I don't have to worry about exams any more :) :) :)

[tech-ultrasonic]

the exam stress keeps me motivated!!! SO i kinda love it.. as it only comes the night before exam.. so i enjoy this time.. while sipping a hot cup of coffee.. listening music in slowww voice and preparing for the other day.. feels great!!! :D Geeky;p

[Reverend Jim]

I'm happy I don't have to worry about exams any more

I had a final in a third year numerical analysis course back in the mid 70s. I showed up on campus an hour at 1:00 for the 6:00 PM exam. On the way through the debug terminal (where plebes ran their card decks) I ran into the course Prof. I expressed surprise that he was "slumming". He expressed surprise that I wasn't in the exam room writing the final. My blood froze. At that point I panicked because at that particular moment I didn't know where the exam room was. I ran into three different exam sessions before I found the right room. Also, 30 minutes after the exam starts they won't let you in. Fortunately the exam had started at 1:30 and not 1:00 so I was only 25 minutes late. It took me 15 minutes to get my breath back.

It's only been in the last five years that I stopped having the occasional bad dream about that.

[BigPaw]

Reminds me of the two students who headed for the coast for the weekend for a series of Beach parties, knowing they had their finals Monday morning first thing. And yeah, did they party? They partied alright... they woke up on a Beach somewhere on Monday afternoon with the worst hangover ever.

Realising their scheduled exam was long gone they decided they would head back to school and tell their lecturer that they had gone away for the weekend to an isolated log cabin so they could revise without any disturbance. They would tell him that they left the cabin with plenty of time to make their way back to school, but they suffered a blow-out and didn't have a spare tyre. It took the recovery truck a long time to find them in the middle of nowhere. They even picked out an isolated log cabin on Google Maps to show him to 'validate' their story. They knew that for this to have the best effect they would need to get back to school that same day Monday before school closed. He would have to let them have another chance at taking the exam with such a water-tight story as that.

They arrived at the school just under 30 minutes before it was going to close for the evening, and found their lecturer. They conceded that they had been appalling students in the past, and went on to tell him the story of the weekend away in a log cabin, and even threw in a little laugh about some Racoons. They were pleased to show him the log cabin on Google Maps, and the general area that they had experienced the tyre blow-out.

The lecturer looked thoughtfully, and then said to the two of them, "Well, that must have had you really worried about your finals, considering how hard you must have been revising in that log cabin there...", the two students nodded vigorously, "...so, here's the deal... I really need to leave on time today, and I am obliged to mark the exams tonight - but if I give you both a shortened exam that you should be able to complete in the next ten minutes, then that would mean I can get going on time. I know it won't justify all that revising you've done, but it does help us both, yes?" The two students could barely contain their grins as they nodded in agreement.

The lecturer quickly set up the exam conditions, their desks were on opposite sides of the room with the student's backs to each other. He dropped an exam sheet on their desks and told them to read the instructions on the first page. The instructions simply said, "No conferring. Answer the exam question on the following page for a 100% pass score. They turned the page and read the one and only question... "Which tyre?"

[Ancient Dragon]

Which tyre?"

LOL! You mean "which tire"

[mike_2000_17]

how do you make your cool or stress free in exams days ?

Humm.. this might sound boring but... How about being well prepared? For the most part, I made sure to sustain a genuine interest in the course material during the term (which just requires an open mind and general curiosity, both pre-requisites to learning). That compelled me to integrate the material as well as to seek to get a good grasp of it as the term progresses. I went to class, did the assignments / exercises (and did them myself), and took notes. When the exam came, I usually studied a few hours the days before the exam (maybe up to 10 hours in the worst cases). On the exam day, if you are confident in your grasp of the course material, and in your ability to solve the problems given, then there is no "bad stress", just the good old adrenaline rush of having to deliver it in time, which is generally helpful. So, the key is confidence, which is built only by working towards being prepared, which is something that you can't do at the last minute.

Of course, this doesn't really apply to "learn-by-heart" courses, only to engineering-style courses where all that matters is your ability to solve problems, and this is partly why I went to engineering school in the first place.

There have been a few exceptions for me, and in most cases, it was a matter of not being prepared, and in some cases that led to excessive stress (i.e., panic). And the reasons for not being well-prepared is either that some courses were just absurdly boring, or the professor was just insane... so, I guess what I'm saying is, it was never my fault ;)

It's only been in the last five years that I stopped having the occasional bad dream about that.

I had a situation like that back in the day too. It was in my last year of Cegep, which is a kind of 2-years preparatory school between high-school and university, here in Quebec. It was an elective advanced calculus class with only about a dozen students in the class. For some reason, in my agenda, I had marked the final to be on a wednesday, but it was on the friday the week before. So thursday night I went out with some friends until very late. I woke up the next day at around 12:30 with a phone call from the teacher asking why I didn't come to the exam that morning. So I rushed over there, hungover, begged him to allow me to take the exam during the afternoon session (where he was invigilating another math exam). And, of course, I hadn't even begun studying for the exam since I thought it was almost a week later. I started the exam at 2pm, finished at 2:45pm (2:15 hours early), got a grade of 100%, and a priceless face from the prof when he delivered the result.

I don't really have bad dreams about it, but anytime I wake up late for something, it reminds of that day.

[Reverend Jim]

LOL! You mean "which tire"

Not in Jolly old England where you might damage your tyre if you drive too close to the kerb.

[kemcar]

Hi Nitin, exams are actually stressful I agree but you can keep yourself tension free as well. While preparing for exams one feels monotonous and annoyed, in that situation the best thing would be to stop studying for a while and get involved in something else. This will give your mind a break from studies for sometime and you will be able to concentrate more later.