Algebra Stress Test

After tutoring this young man in Intermediate Algebra for a few weeks, I could
see that he’s really on the ball. A sharp, intelligent kid. It certainly was a
joy to work with someone who is not only smart, but polite as well. I’m sure
there are many like him but I’ve seen more who were not. So it goes.

When we went through the problems I could see he had many concepts down pat. I
watched as he solved many of the workbook problems by himself. If fact
occasionally I would be stumped on something that I hadn’t seen for twenty
years and he would explain it to me. Now how about my tutoring skills?  The
point I’m trying to make is that this guy seemed to know much of what I was
there to tutor him in. Of course as a high school student in second semester
algebra, there were plenty of areas that he needed some explanation for. But
on the whole he was doing really well.

As we were wrapping up our final week of tutoring before the final exam, I mentioned to his parents how well he was doing and they told me that last semester he was doing well and helping other kids in Algebra 1, explaining to them some of the concepts they could not understand. Yet when it came time for the test he would do poorly. They could not understand the drop off from studying with other kids and then stumbling through the exam. It didn’t make any sense.

Suddenly I saw myself a few years ago, back in school as an older student
(nontraditional they called it). Whenever I was taking a math or science
course, I would seem to slowly get the ideas, as I plodded along. I would sit
with a study group and be able to participate in the work we did together. Yet
when exam time came, I would study all the harder, but when I sat down to take
the test I would very often do poorly even though I seemed to know the
material beforehand. Like many other students I would get to class early on
exam day and sit there and cram like all those around me for every last minute,
before the exam was handed out.

What I discovered was that I did everything right until the day of the exam.
That was the only thing I needed to change in order to improve my grades. What
did I do instead? Nothing! Well not exactly nothing, but the one thing I did
not do was study. That’s right. Up until test day I would work hard, join
groups, get a tutor if the subject was too much for me. I recommend
all those things. However, on test day I would make sure I had a good meal,
did something good for myself, maybe exercise or go for a walk with a friend.
Especially, I would meditate just before exams, rather than cram more
information into my head. You see, what I realized was that all the
information I needed was there days before, but as I kept frantically pushing
through more information or the same information again, all I was doing was
stressing me out.  So by the time I sat down for the test my head was spinning.

What I found, by trial and error, was that if I do all the legwork beforehand
and study real hard, get help if needed (see TutorZ.com), the only thing left
to do was to relax. So on the day of the exam I would make sure I had a decent
night’s sleep, instead of staying up late cramming. Then I would have a good
breakfast; get a little exercise and head to school. When I get to the campus
I would not rush to class early to reread as much as possible until exam time.
Rather I would find a nice spot on the grass some place under a tree and
meditate for 15 to 20 minutes. And BAM! I’m ready for the test. Don’t ask me
how or why, all I know is when I used this approach for test preparation I
ALWAYS got a much better grade! Always.