Taking Tests
So, how did October go at your house?
For parents, chosen families, and educators of younger humans that was a LOT of prep towards Halloween. Not just Halloween, but any of the varied cultural celebrations this time of year too.
For those in the orbit of post-secondary kiddos, there was Reading Week and midterms.
For all, we might be wondering how to best support the students in our lives with the quizzes, tests, and exams they’re facing. We’re past the back-to-school buzz, but not yet at the winter break. This in-between time contains a lot of work – preparing for and taking assessments of every kind.
We are squarely in test-taking season, across ages, grades, and years. There are quizzes, midterms, exams, and before we know it…finals.
How learners tackle tests reveals a lot.
Here’s what I mean…
#1. Prioritizing the final feedback over heeding their own
Have you ever asked a learner how they felt they did on an exam, only to receive a mumbled reply about how they’ll “have to wait and see”? Some students might immediately say, “I failed,” and others, “I aced it.” But all of these responses are about the final grade, the external feedback.
I invite learners to consider all the forms of feedback during the test-prep and test-taking process itself.
How did they feel the night before – anxious, sleepless, at peace?
How did they feel going into the assessment – disoriented, exhausted, confident?
What was like it during?
After?
Every stage is an opportunity to mirror and share back so much information to a student – about how they’re studying, how they’re taking care of themselves, how they’re showing up in class, how they might be struggling silently…
Yet students often “give away” their own experience to the numbers, rubrics, and letter grades from a teacher. (Most of which come days or weeks after the exam.)
Students might not realize that they have agency here, that there’s a choice – to include, reflect on, and tend to their own experience of test-taking as just as important as whatever that final mark may be.
I so very much want students to tap into the wisdom and nudges of their own bodies, their own experiences, and engaging in honest reflection from there.
#2. Sticking with stuck study habits
ALL of the students I work with come to know that there are two best ways to study:
practice questions
do them over time
Of course there are a TON of nuances and fun add-ons. But studying 101? Practice + over time. Yet, so many my students continue to rewrite their notes, re-read their notes, flip through their notes.
Why? Because…
It can be REALLY hard to take that leap of faith and try out a new system (even when it’s a radical game-changer).
It’s not what everyone else is doing (although I wish they were!).
It’s hard to imagine a life where less studying can lead to better performance (because more efficient prep leads to more freed-up time for fun!).
It can be so hard to part ways with what’s not working. Even when it’s really not working.
#3. Just getting on with the next
I always encourage my student-clients to decide, ahead of time, what they’ll do before their exam that isn’t studying, and after their exam to rest, savour the moment, and celebrate their efforts.
Students are SHOCKED when I ask this.
Before a test…
Most students come to strategy sessions assuming that pre-midterm, it’s go-go-go. They believe the only thing to do is panic; flipping through their notes one last time, ratcheting up their already high stress even higher. It’s key to remember that high stress before a big assessment won’t lead to high quality or high performance. Instead, we need to nourish that performance through pendulating to what restores us.
I encourage students to not study right before the test. Instead, recommend they focus deeply on other things – particularly things they love. Some of my students over the years have chosen to bake, craft, knit, make music, play sports. This approach is exactly right.
If a student has studied, then they can treat that evening-before time as one of rest, of topping up the spirit before the big performance so to speak the next day. It’s about recharging the battery and setting oneself up for a good night’s sleep.
When the test is over…
Most students I initially meet never think about what happens when the test is over. They walk out of a final or exam in a daze, head home, flip between lounging, TV, and regret over what they missed. I ask students to decide on something savouring to do ahead of time – like a meal with a beloved friend, or ordering in and watching a favourite film. A night off, a marking-the-moment separate from the actual marks to come.
It’s in honouring all that goes into doing school, and doing it well, and not basking our celebrations on the end result. Nor moving too quickly onto the next project, the next assignments.
If we’re always onto-the-next, school can very quickly feel very joyless.
So let’s nudge our learners to heed their own wisdom and feedback, to break ties with exhausting and inefficient studying, and shape and soften how they treat themselves before and after quizzes, midterms, and finals.
Wishing you kind learning,
Deena