Most test-taking tips focus on psychology—eliminate the wrong answers, trust your gut, don’t overthink it. But when the pressure’s on, those strategies often fail us.

That’s why we created this FREE student-friendly PDF guide built around a smarter, more reliable approach: the Cover-and-Match Method.

For many households and classrooms, May brings a particular kind of tension—one that can leave both adults and young people feeling helpless, frustrated, and exhausted. But what if I told you that exam season could be different? What if, instead of stress and last-minute cramming, this period could become one of confidence-building, self-discovery, and yes—even beauty?

I want to make the case for beautiful teaching—a craft that's radically inclusive, that leaves learners feeling good, and that feels good to practice. I also want to make the case for beautiful learning—an experience of joyfully disorienting and recalibrating, both inside and outside the classroom.

Whether it’s a surprising mark, unexpected comments, or a critique that feels personal, this resource walks you through what to do (and what not to do) when emotions run high.

It's equally important to share that a good number of our learner-clients don't have a diagnosis–they wrestle with procrastination, perfectionism, pandemic learning gaps. It could well be that the cost of learning is simply becoming too high—rampant stress, "okay" marks despite hours of review, and a kind of ho-hum quality to it all.

Pass this roadmap along to the learners in your orbit who could use a little structure or nudge about how to study, catch up on missed material, move forward with upcoming assignments, take care of other responsibilities, and reconnect with loved ones. It's not easy, and there's a lot going on.

I’m all for scaffolding our motivations (though motivation alone is insufficient for action), just as I’m all for having aims, ambitions, and aspirations (though these, too, aren’t enough on their own to spur or sustain action). What I’m not for, however, are generic, often unquestioned “systems.”

Increasingly, I’ve come to sense that “balance” isn’t very helpful. Not just in terms of language, but in what it implies—some kind of final and static place of arrival. There is an unattainability—that just-out-of-reach quality—that discourages and flattens me.

But what do we do with the pain of learning? We know from our mission that in learning there can also be so much joy, curiosity, collaboration, and fun – but what if school, homework, and studying feel so difficult that it hurts?