Summer is just around the corner and as student life slowly returns to normal, end of the semester examinations loom on the horizon and with it, familiar fears and anxiety about taking tests. Some students consider exams a challenge to be mastered and are a little nervous. Others consider examinations to be an almost insurmountable obstacle and tend to experience heightened feelings of fear, anxiety, and panic.

We would like to provide you with some tips and approaches to help you get through the exam period with less fear and anxiety. The key elements are study and work techniques, relaxation and positive thoughts.

Take the Time to Study and Apply Study Techniques
The best way to calm your nerves is to prepare well for an examination. If you have barely studied for an exam, then your fear of failure maybe fairly justified and difficult to overcome. Think about how much time you need to study for each exam. Increase this time by another 30 - 50 % and then create a reasonable study schedule. On average, we can spend a maximum of six hours a day studying intensively. Since we also need to take breaks in between, we can assume a realistic study period can be about eight hours a day. After studying for about 30-45 minutes, take short breaks and take larger breaks after two to three hours.

According to Hermann Ebbinghaus' learning and forgetting curve, after two days, most people retain 20 to 30% of information they’ve learned once. Our memory needs an average of five learning cycles to permanently store new information. Ideally, the last studying round is one week before the examination date and the last few days leading up to the exam should only be used to review the information.

Our Tip: Invest 30 minutes every week to plan how you will study for the exam.

During the days leading up to the exam, review the material under the examination conditions. For example, if you are preparing for an oral examination, formulate what you wish to say about the subject area in your own words and have a classmate test you. If you are studying for a written examination, you can, for example, collect old examination questions, put them together in one or more practice tests, and work through these questions under corresponding time constraints.

Practice Relaxation Techniques
Anxiety symptoms are controlled by the autonomic nervous system and cannot be directly influenced at will. However, there are relaxation exercises to help calm the nervous feelings.

Practicing relaxation techniques on a regular basis, at least once a day, significantly reduces tension and stress. The more you practice applying relaxation techniques, the faster you will be able to calm yourself in stressful situations.

An ideal relaxation exercise during study breaks is a breathing focus technique that brings elements of suggestion and conditioning into play. Sit comfortably on a chair, close your eyes or look down at the floor. Take a few deep breaths and concentrate fully on the way air flows throughout your body. Then proceed to consciously inhale and exhale and then the next time you inhale, say the word "in" in your mind and each time you exhale, say "calm". You can, of course, use other similar positive words such as "let go", "rest", "empty" or "relax".

The more you practice these kinds of breathing exercises, the faster your body will respond when you prompt it using your respective relaxation word.

Our Tip: Three times a day, take five minutes to do a breathing exercise and help work with your body to remain calm, even during stressful situations.

Try to Stay Positive and Realistic
Sometimes it helps to think about why you feel the way you do and write it down. What is it that you believe, assume, or interpret that leads you to feel anxious and overwhelmed in a demanding situation, such as when taking an exam? Do you tend to overestimate everyone else’s abilities and/or underestimate your own abilities? Do you focus more on past failures than on the successes? Is success interpreted as luck and failure when it comes to your personal failures?

Once you have identified negative thoughts and feelings, it may help to write them down on index cards. On the back of that card, you can then write down new, positive and encouraging thoughts. Make sure that these alternative thoughts have the same content as the anxious thoughts and formulate them in a positive way (better, "I have learned how to calm down" rather than "I am no longer afraid"). Also, try to express your new thoughts in your own words and be realistic (better: "I am allowed to be nervous before an exam" instead of "I am completely relaxed and look forward to my exam"). It is important that you believe what you write down as your alternative thought.

Our Tip: If you feel increasingly anxious shortly before the exam, it may be helpful to keep the cards containing positive thoughts on hand and read through them again.

During the exam, it might be a good idea to leave the index cards in your pocket so that they are not accidentally mistaken for cheat sheets. You could also perhaps select something personal to symbolize encouraging and calming thoughts (a scarf, a bracelet, or colorful socks); this could help you remember your positive thoughts.

If you would like learn more about this topic, the Psychological Student Counseling Service Linz plans to offer free workshops in the fall of 2020 focusing on examination anxiety, applying effective memory techniques for studying, and ways to study more efficiently.

Additional psychological and psychotherapeutic support services

Staff at the Psychological Student Counselling Service Linz is now available in person for individual consultations.

Call 0732-2468-7930 for a counseling session appointment.

We are available Monday to Thursday from 7.30 am - 3.30 pm and Friday from 7.30 am - 1.30 pm.