Provided by petersons.com

Once you've registered to take your exam and you've decided how you're going to study for it, you can turn your attention to the actual test situation. Ask yourself three questions:

1. How do I really feel about taking tests? Am I generally relaxed and efficient?
2. Am I nervous in a test situation, so nervous that I waste time with instructions, get confused by questions, or fixate on getting the answer to every one, unable to move on until I do?
3. What special skills will I need to work on in order to improve my test performance?

Recently, a group of students spoke candidly with Peterson's about their first reactions to standardized tests:

• "When it comes to tests, I'm the kind of person who gets hypnotized by the clock. I watch the minutes tick away and become more and more tense until I can't work anymore. Consequently I never finish tests on time and always leave them with a sense of deep frustration."
• "It's funny; I always worked hard and performed pretty well in my high school classes and on the tests we had every week in class. But I've never been able to transfer that success over to standardized tests. I just wish I didn't have to be judged by how well I do on tests, and that people would just accept me for who I am."
• "In test situations I just can't focus on the test! I keep thinking of how much fun I am going to have next Saturday afternoon when I get together with my friends."

If you have a hard time focusing when you go into a test, remember how you overcame other challenges in your life, like your first dive into the local swimming pool. You talked to yourself, right? Do this again, and persuade yourself to look at the questions in a relaxed and thoughtful manner.

If the clock intimidates you, then practice with your software or test-preparation book, using a kitchen timer. When the timer rings, reset it and move on to the next question no matter what. You will get used to thinking more efficiently and quickly.

If difficult questions make you panic, then the appropriate strategy would be to skip the difficult questions. On most standardized tests, some of the responses will be more difficult than others, and each response counts the same. Think of the fact that if you correctly skip the few difficult questions on the test and get all the others right, you are going to do very well.

If you have difficulty with a question and pass it by, you can always look at it again later if there is time. Faced with four or five multiple-choice responses to a question you understand, eliminate the one or two obvious wrong answers, then select the response that best answers the question. If you are still puzzled, do not respond to the question at all. Remember not to read too much into a question. Take the test questions at face value. The test makers are not out to trick you, believe it or not.

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