Introduction

The messages that we silently repeat to ourselves about a situation or task (referred to as “self-talk) can have a tremendous impact on our actual behavior and performance.  This is true across the full range of our daily personal and work activities, whether the task is making a presentation, conducting an important and potentially stressful meeting, taking an examination, or participating in a sporting event.  In the case of exam preparation, if you constantly tell yourself, “I am going to fail this test”; “I won’t remember what I have studied”; or, “I always freeze up when I hit a question that I can’t answer” -- then you are programming yourself to expect those things to happen.  You are actually creating a scenario in your mind that can direct your behavior and increase the possibility of those negative things happening.

Some degree of anxiety when preparing for and taking an important examination is not only natural, but is probably helpful.  This normal level of anxiety may help you to assign a high priority to your study time and to focus your mind on the test when it is time to take the examination.  However, very high levels of anxiety are almost always detrimental. Although Individuals who experience high test anxiety may study longer and perhaps even “learn” more than those who do not experience a high level of anxiety, often these individuals do not perform well on the actual test.  It appears that this occurs because as their anxiety spikes when they come to a question they can’t answer, this interferes with their ability to recall other information for other questions.  Research has shown that individuals who focus too much on assessing their performance while taking the test are using up important memory in that task, which is then unavailable to recall the information they actually know and need to answer other questions.

 

Test Taking Audio Files

These audio files, available as CDs or .mp3 files, have positive statements to motivate you, to replace negative self-talk, and to lower your anxiety to a healthy level.  They create positive scenarios or scripts that will assist in directing your behavior and performance to achieve success on the examination.

The negative messages you are seeking to counteract and replace have likely been repeated in your mind over and over, hundreds of times -- without your even being aware that they were interfering with success.  Therefore, in order for the positive messages and directives on these audio files to replace those long-standing negative ones, they must be listened to repeatedly and over a period of days and weeks.  These messages do not, however, require that you focus on them as they play. In fact, playing them over and over, without conscientiously focusing on their messages seems to be quite effective.  (how to listen)

Book and CD covers have been created and designed by Amy Biddle.  If you are interested in hiring her to design Web pages, book and CD covers, or other artistic creations, she can be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it