Combating Test Anxiety

Since my future career goal is to become a school counselor I thought it might be appropriate to post some tips to combat test anxiety. I personally struggle with Test Anxiety and have tried all of these techniques on myself with mixed levels of effectiveness.

  1. According to Myron Dembo and Helena Seli, a lot of stress and anxiety stems from negative self-talk particularly from catastrophizing the impact of failing the test and engaging in “shoulds”. Instead of expecting disaster when going in for an examination try to be more optimistic with the outcome of tests and college. Also don’t always demand perfection from yourself. Engage in positive self-talk. Understand that mistakes and setbacks are okay and a part of life. When I tried this and actually believed what I was telling myself it alleviated a lot of the pressure I had put on myself to succeed and I was less nervous taking exams as a result.
  2. There has been research on the effectiveness of expressive writing to combat test anxiety. Gerado Ramirez and Sian Beilock found that after math-anxious people expressed their feelings of anxiety right before taking the exam they were less nervous during the exam and performed better. Expressive writing is a method that encourages people to write about their thoughts and feelings concerning a significant stressor they are facing. I tried this 10 minutes before taking an exam. I wrote on a sheet of paper my feelings towards the test and why I was nervous. I personally did not like this technique. I would have preferred to have been looking over my notes for those 10 minutes and not doing so gave me more anxiety.
  3. Test preparation with a supportive friend can help one manage test anxiety. According to Irwin Sarason this strategy helps to reduce self-preoccupation. I enjoyed this strategy however be warned that you will need to allocate more study time than you normally would because studying with someone else can easily cause distractions!
  4. Three psychologists from the Netherlands found that skimming the questions on a test before answering any of them can alleviate test anxiety. Skimming the test also helps you to access the information you have studied that has been stored away in your memory. I really liked this strategy because after I looked through the test I was able to see that I knew the information that was being tested and that helped me to calm down.

I encourage anyone that struggles with test anxiety to try these strategies out. Everyone is different so what didn’t work well for me may work well for you and vice-versa. No matter what though the best way to not be nervous and stressed during a test is to prepare yourself well and study!

 

Coursework in LT2010

Powerpoint:

I created a 7 slide powerpoint highlighting my research on the effects of corporal punishment on children. Below is one of these slides.

 

Research Paper:

I wrote a two page research paper on the effects the physical punishment can have on a child’s development.

 

Microsoft Excel: 

I calculated the average gas prices over multiple years. I included graphs as visual aids. 

My Resume!

Nyssa Bowen

700-336-5441

nbowen4@student.gsu.edu

141 Piedmont Avenue NE, Atlanta, Ga

 

Education

Georgia State University

May 2019| Human Learning and Development

 

Summary of Accomplishments

  • Graduated Cass High School as Valedictorian of the Class of 2016
  • Georgia State Honors College
  • Berner Scholar
  • Presidents List Fall 2016

 

Work Experience

Sandwich Artist/Cashier |May 2016 – August 2016

Subway | Cartersville, GA 30121

I maintained and ran a subway. My tasks included opening and closing the store, prepping food, making sandwiches, managing a cash register and keeping the store up to cleanliness and health codes.

 

Telemarketer | December 2015– April 2016

Farmers Insurance | Cartersville, GA 30120

My position required me to create leads for insurance agents with people who were interested in home, auto and life insurance. The position was competitive and fast paced, however I was the leading telemarketer at the office. I was typically able to generate five genuine leads in two hours.

Succulents and Search Engines

For this assignment I decided to search Succulents AND Sunlight. I chose this because I have been struggling keeping my succulent plants alive in my apartment and I believe that it is because they are not receiving enough sunlight. I chose three search engines (Google, Bing and Yahoo) and three meta-search engines (Dogpile, Webcrawler and MetaCrawler).

I found many similarities in the top 5 searches listed for each search engine. I found it interesting that not only were most of the results mainly the same, the order in which they appeared were very similar. I was most impressed with the results from the webcrawler meta-search engine because it gave me some results that the other search engines failed to list. I also noticed that there were significantly more advertisements posted on the meta-search engines compared to the regular search engines. This may be due to the meta-search engines not being as popular thus they require more advertisements to be able to afford the upkeep of the website.

*Click on each table to see the results for that website*

3 Tips for Being Successful Online Student

  1. In an online class, it can be really easy to forget to turn in assignments before they are due. I find that something that is very helpful for me is to have reminders set on my phone. The easiest way to do this is to sign up for text notifications through iCollege, they will remind you two days before something is due that the deadline is coming up and will also remind you the day of and the day before. I have found this tool to be very helpful.
  2. I also suggest finding a work space that has no other purpose other than to do online work. This could be an entire separate room or just a specific seat or section of a room. I especially do not recommend doing work for class in your bed!
  3. Lastly I recommend logging onto iCollege at least for a few moments every day. This way if the professor had to change plans suddenly for whatever reason you won’t find out after it’s too late.

An Introduction to Me

Hey y’all! My name is Nyssa Bowen and I am a sophomore here at GSU! I’m 19 years old and will be 20 in September. I was born and raised in Cartersville, Georgia. I was a part of my High School Color Guard and initially chose GSU because of their guard program. After arriving here however I realized that guard was no longer my passion. I graduated from Cass High School back in the spring of 2017 and dual enrolled at Georgia Highlands College during my junior and senior of high school. I entered GSU with the goal of obtaining a mathematics degree however after one week in my Calculus 2 course I realized that I had made a horrible mistake. I am now pursuing a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with a concentration in Human Learning and Development. I eventually hope to be an elementary school counselor. I enjoy the outdoors and love animals. I have a pet turtle named Dayton, a cat named Yoki and a dog named Tater. Faith is a large part of my life and I attend Passion City Church here in Atlanta. I’m super excited about what I can gain through this course and can’t wait to see what’s next!2016-06-15_17-21-51_000