Success on Tests – Sorting and Purging is a Key to Successful Test Preparation
BySuccess on tests and exams comes in large part from doing the right things at the the right time, and doing them in the right way. While this seems simple there is one key action that is frequently left undone and it can make the whole test preparation process feel more manageable.
When you think of your child or teen preparing for tests or exams you typically think of things such as reading the material, answering questions, maybe making flash cards, taking notes and so on. There is actually a very simple tactic that is usually overlooked in the quest for success on tests and exams.
The key question is: Did (s)he start on a clear playing field? We are talking here about the students field of vision. What does the student see with his or her eyes? Is she looking at a clean desk with books, papers, notes and materials? Or is she looking at chaos? The difference in these two scenes can have a lot to do with the student’s feeling in general. If the student feels calm and confident the fruits of the study session will be very different than if she feels confused and uncertain.
If your student is looking at stacks of unsorted papers and notes there will be some items in that pile that are vital to success on the upcoming test but they are hidden from view by all the clutter of unrelated or unimportant papers and notes mixed into the pile. If somewhere in that mass of mess of 63 papers are the useful 11 pages the student needs it can be a confusing chore just to sort them out. Then after all that effort there may still be 1 or 2 important notes missing. But who knows. This puts your student at a great disadvantage in studying for the test.
It is a discouraging process to waste lots of your valuable study time just finding what you need to get started. The student can feel guilt and/or frustration. Neither of these feelings put your student in his best form.
But wait! It gets worse. Much worse. It’s bad enough to see the valuable time wasted as your child or teen digs through the piles of papers looking for things. Indeed that is time wasted. Nothing productive is going on there. The most damaging part of this is that the student will feel discouraged and frustrated at their inability to just get to the task at hand. These negative feelings actually impact the student’s brain functioning. He or she will not perform at his or her best even after the searching time is done and the actual study begins. So you will watch your student waste valuable time and drop to a lower performance level.
Weeding out the important papers from the unimportant ones is usually not mentioned at all after your student moves from middle school to high school. Since this vital skill helps your student get a test study session off to a good confident start it is important to be sure your student learns the skill and habit of creating a clean visual space in the study area
This is so astonishingly simple yet rarely addressed. Finding the needle in the haystack. Ugh! How would it be if your student had all of the papers and notes and not a single page more. Not one extra word. Imagine the ease of sitting down to that study session. It’s a piece of cake.
