Family Matters

Who is not afraid of tests?

When I was a school kid (and not a very good one, mind you), I hated tests. I used to be so scared I was sick on the day. Sometimes, this worked and I got to stay at home, but most of the times I still had to go to school and take the test. The more I was afraid of tests, the worse my grades were. You could say that the worse I thought I would do, the more I feared the test.

In 2008, I wrote the post How to study for tests, which contained important tips and advice on preparing and taking exams at school. That post covered 11 tips. Since then, I have had a chance to talk to many teachers about tip number 3 – highlight the important things – and I want to give some ideas on how to get the teacher to help you (your kids) do that.

Generally speaking, teachers really want their students to succeed. I know there are still teachers out there who consider teaching as some form of competition with their students, but they are the minority and we do not want to give them a stage here, so let’s just ignore them. I still believe teachers want their students to succeed, because after all, students’ success is proof the teacher has done a good job.

Teaching kids to notice the clues is very easy. You tell them that a class is like a challenging puzzle and they must solve the puzzle during exams. The challenge during the whole term is to find the pieces needed for the exam. Every test question is a piece of the puzzle. We need kids to listen carefully to the teachers, because they give clues about the pieces.