Crumbling under exam pressure

[JR_StudyEd]

Limited time? Check.
A lot of questions to answer? Check.
Difficult questions sprinkled in for fun? Check.
Me feeling apathetic? Check.
My mind going blank? Check.
Leaving questions blank because you can't be bothered to answer them? Check.
Forcing yourself to sit down for more than 15 minutes to complete practice exams in order to 'prepare'? Check.

These are just a few of the problems I am enduring, and which I will continue to endure in the next 6 weeks with regards to exams. I dread doing practice exams, but iT's tHe mOsT eFfEcTiVe sTuDy TeChNiQuE. And it will help me identify my problem areas (i.e. the entire subject). Not giving up after the reading time will be a challenge.

I am especially concerned about my ability to recall and retrieve information from my brain during an exam. You might ask, "but you've been doing SACs all year - those are basically mini-exams! How is this any different?". You make a good point. But sitting down for 2 hours straight doing maths methods? Yeah, no thanks. (Even though I have to actually do that pretty soon). How do I ensure that my brain does its job during the exam and that I can cope with any sort of mental breakdown that occurs in the exam room on the day?

[DrDusk]

Limited time? Check.
A lot of questions to answer? Check.
Difficult questions sprinkled in for fun? Check.
Me feeling apathetic? Check.
My mind going blank? Check.
Leaving questions blank because you can't be bothered to answer them? Check.
Forcing yourself to sit down for more than 15 minutes to complete practice exams in order to 'prepare'? Check.

These are just a few of the problems I am enduring, and which I will continue to endure in the next 6 weeks with regards to exams. I dread doing practice exams, but iT's tHe mOsT eFfEcTiVe sTuDy TeChNiQuE. And it will help me identify my problem areas (i.e. the entire subject). Not giving up after the reading time will be a challenge.

I am especially concerned about my ability to recall and retrieve information from my brain during an exam. You might ask, "but you've been doing SACs all year - those are basically mini-exams! How is this any different?". You make a good point. But sitting down for 2 hours straight doing maths methods? Yeah, no thanks. (Even though I have to actually do that pretty soon). How do I ensure that my brain does its job during the exam and that I can cope with any sort of mental breakdown that occurs in the exam room on the day?

Well your not alone. God this happened to me in my Maths extension 2 HSC exam. I remember getting to question 16 and just sweating hard because I was really stuck. My mind went blank and I was like well there goes my mark. I left about 10-12 marks blank, and even then my mark was 92.

So I guess what to take away is you may think you did really bad, but what matters is how you do compared to the rest of the state.

[Matthew_Whelan]

All of us are in the same boat; the only thing we can do is to crunch practise exams religiously until the VCAA exams are predictable and doable. There are questions designed to trip up the majority, therefore don't feel bad when you cant do something because it is likely most others cant either.
Anxiety perpetuates itself so just focus on doing the best you can and exams won't seem so daunting.