It’s E-word time: the big month of GCSE and A-level exams has come crashing in with the calm inevitability of a runaway locomotive. Along with the exams come the pressure and cajoling, most often in the guise of advice, much of which can prove unhelpful, self-defeating and annoying to the poor student who has to do the work.
And, anyway, in these final few weeks it can feel too late for rescue; that it’s not worth trying anything new. But there’s hope: psychologists have discovered a battery of scientifically based strategies that could help to improve students’ scores if they are practised in the final run-up to the tests.
We’ve put them all together here for you, along with tips for parents on being cool coaches, and nutritional advice (overleaf) for feeding that exam-crunching brain. The bad news is that there is no substitute for revision, but the good news is that students can listen to their favourite music and have fun while doing the work.
STAY HEALTHY
Stress bunnies beware: you’re putting yourself at risk of getting a nasty cold or another illness right in the middle of your exams. Caffeine-fuelled all-night study sessions might seem a great way of achieving lots in a short time, but they wreck your sleep cycle, disrupt your eating patterns and trash your immune system.
Your body’s ability to fight infection takes a dive at exam time, so it needs all the help it can get. A study of blood tests of 87 high school students at Ohio State University found that their levels of natural killer cells (the bloodstream’s security guards) were much lowered.
As well as sleeping and eating sensibly, turning to friends and family can help you to de-stress. An Alabama University study published in Research in Nursing and Health found that students with high levels of social support at exam time had much healthier levels of immune cells in their blood.
BE A WISER REVISER
When to start Now. We exist only in the eternal now. So now is a good time to start.
What to do Test yourself. Researchers at Washington University report that testing yourself on what you’ve just learnt is a much better way of embedding it in your brain. The scientists report in the journal Psychological Science that they took two groups of students and asked one to read a prose passage once and test their knowledge of it three times. The other group was asked to re-read the passage three times. In an exam a week later, the self-testers recalled 61 per cent of the passage, compared with 40 per cent by the re-readers.
Use your imagination While revising, try to remember the classroom scene when you were taught it. This engages other parts of the brain — your imagination and your visual sense — which can come to your aid in the exam room when you’re trying to recall facts. It also adds a bit of fun. You can even try emulating your teacher’s movements. It sounds mad but students who mimic the gestures of their teachers while learning maths learn new strategies more quickly than those who don’t, a Chicago University study of 49 students reports in the Journal of Cognition and Development. The movement helps to lock ideas into their brains.
Listen to music Show this to your parents: University of California psychologists have found that listening to all forms of music can improve academic performance. In IQ tests, college students scored higher marks after listening to a Mozart piano sonata than they did when they were tested after sitting in silence. Another study, by Strathclyde University, found that half of pupils claim that they can concentrate better on their homework when music is playing because it shuts out distracting noises. Investigators believe that the complex structure and rhythms of classical music can also help by co-ordinating the parts of the brain that control rational and creative thought. But rock music has a similar effect, say the researchers. Pink Floyd’s The Wall helped boys to remember sequences of numbers.
Chop it all down Don’t just keep ploughing through the same mountain of notes. It’s demoralising. Dr Dawn Hamilton, the author of Passing Exams, recommends that you “chunk down” your work by reducing pages of reading to a few sentences. She also suggests that you link key ideas in your head with a rhyme or acronym.
What’s your optimum attention time? No two people are alike but, for starters, try the 45/15 rule: study for 45 minutes every hour and take 15 minutes off. Two to three hours is the maximum time that most people can study before they stop absorbing things. Break up periods of work with periods of relaxation. And reward yourself for your hard work with small treats.
Allowing regular breaks also helps to fend off the No 1 enemy of study, avoidance, such as cleaning your room or emptying your e-mail inbox. My old schoolfriend Jeremy admits that he used to spend hours timing how long he could hold his head under his Anglepoise lamp before the heat became unbearable. Instead of charring your head, burn off some of that stress by playing sports, hitting the gym or simply taking a health-giving, stress-busting walk.
And lay off the computer games. Give your brain a chance to settle.
Night nerves The night before an exam can be hard. Don’t start revising completely new areas, it will just freak you. Instead, stick to key points and summaries. Actually, it’s far more important to go to bed at a decent hour and get some sleep; you will perform better. Keep those stay-awake nerves at bay by reminding yourself that you know the material. Say “stop” to yourself at the onset of any negative, panicky thoughts.
PSYCH YOURSELF UP
When we feel threatened our fight-or-flight reflexes kick in and the body directs the blood to the primitive brain at the top of the spine. Survival instincts invade your head and rational thoughts take a dive. But ultimately, all that stress exists only in your mind. There are no physical threats, lions or enemy warriors in the exam room. Top-class sports people face the same type of challenge with performance-related stress. By employing the same positive relaxation and focusing tactics that they use, you can help to control your stress better.
One of the most common techniques that Olympic athletes use is to daydream about winning, walking up to the podium to get a medal; or in your case, sailing through the exams, then opening a letter to read your fantastic results. Mary Lou Retton, the American Olympic gold-winning gymnast, says: “Visualise yourself achieving a goal. Picture the achievement in detail. It’s easier to be confident about something you’ve seen happening.”
You can lock this deep into your brain by borrowing a self-hypnosis technique used in neurolinguistic programming (NLP). Every day, make a movie in your head of being an exam success. Do this just before you go to sleep, while you are still in bed or when you feel relaxed. Always start the movie with the final frames in mind. Use your five senses.
What do you see around you? What can you hear? What can you taste or smell? Imagine the school, your friends, the exam room, and how amazingly calm you are. Turn up the colours and the sound, make the picture bigger, and experience just how cool you are as you achieve those straight-A results. Focus on that feeling. Pinch your thumb and finger together each time you feel it.
And then, on the big day, when you head for the exam room, pinch your finger and thumb together. Remember the confidence and the success you’ve imagined and you’re ready to go.
EXAM-ROOM COOL
If you’re a high-scoring student who relies on working things out rather than just memorising stuff, you’ve got more reason than anyone else to work on being calm in the exam room. Studies show that exam pressure is more likely to impair the performance of good students than average ones.
Researchers at Michigan State University say that when the heat is on, good students can lose the strong short-term or working memory that enables them to process numbers and thoughts while focusing on a problem. Students with less powerful working memories may rely on other methods, such as looking for patterns (or guessing), and are less likely to fold under pressure.
Calming down can benefit everyone: half of all undergraduates would improve their performance if they could control their anxiety, and about 5 per cent suffer so badly that their performance slips by two degree classes, the British Journal of Educational Psychology reports.
Use relaxation techniques Before beginning the test, close your eyes and reflect. Breathe in slowly and exhale to relax the body and refocus any negative energy.
If that doesn’t work: chew gum Research by Elaine Wilmore, an associate professor at Texas University, suggests that chewing gum may calm down students and help to raise their test scores. Her study on students at a Texas high school found that the mean score for students allowed to chew gum was three points higher compared with those who weren’t. “Gum chewing is a small price to pay for reduced test anxiety and a better grade,” Wilmore wrote.
And take a lucky charm Many students have their own made-up magic or superstitions during exams, such as wearing something lucky, having a lucky charm or sitting somewhere special — and it can work, say sociologists at Manitoba University in Canada. Some students eat lucky foods, or even use the same pen they used to write their class notes because “the pen knows the material”.
The researchers say that magic can work by decreasing anxiety and keeping you at your optimum level of performance. But whatever you do, don’t lose your lucky gonk, lucky pen or lucky knickers.
No 1 lesson for parents: don’t panic
Pity the kids? Think of the parents. The run-up to exams is just as stressful for parents as it is for teens. It’s often the first time their child has been judged by the world and they feel judged too: those tough decisions about schools are being put to the test. That — and recognising that the results are way beyond your control — is enough to make anyone panic.
COACHING
Hands-on tuition isn’t recommended. Some kids appreciate the attention but locking horns over textbooks can be counter- productive. A friend of mine coached her son in GCSE English lit every night for six months, only to find that he went from a grade D to an E. Terri Apter, a social psychologist at Cambridge University and the author of The Myth of Maturity, says: “If you want to coach, focus on the task in hand and be responsive: your teenager will tell you whether it’s useful or making him or her anxious or impatient.”
BRIBERY
It’s easy to feel that other parents are providing the right blend of encouragement and colourful revision charts. The reality is that they’re just as likely to be reduced to bribery — £100 for every A* is the going rate in our area. A recent ICM survey found that 70 per cent of parents in the North of England promised cash for good results.
KEEP AN EYE ON THEM
The problem for working parents is that they can’t be sure how much work is actually being done. Even if you’re home-based, it’s hard to know what goes on behind closed doors and, more importantly, whether the revision is productive. Apter says that parents shouldn’t be afraid to ask their children about the work they’ve covered during the day: “If a child isn’t doing enough it’s virtually impossible not to nag, but nagging can be structured. Work out a reasonable amount of revision time and designate a specific time of day for it. And if for some reason the time has to be changed, then the work also has to be reallocated.” Easier said than done.
HOW TO HELP
If the mention of revision sets hackles rising, there are unobtrusive ways to offer help, from delivering regular snacks (see page 14) and offering to test, to generally hovering in the background ready to explain things or to discuss ideas and problems.
According to Apter, that’s just as important with undergraduate offspring, even though they may be far away. She says: “Independent though they are in both practical and intellectual terms, university students still want emotional support, to know that their parents respect their efforts and that they’ll be forgiving if they mess up. So it’s important to show your interest and appreciation on the phone and via e-mail.” Above all, Apter insists, it’s vital that all parents keep a sense of perspective about exams: “Remember, if your child doesn’t do well it’s not like a horrible illness or injury. There are many more chances.”
CELIA DODD
