SAT AND ACT IMPROVEMENT: THE MENTAL SIDE By Dr. Wayne Adams When I started helping students learn and achieve optimum performance at the college and grad school level many years ago, I was committed to the idea that half of optimum performance was mental. This has proven correct! All of my students today know that I firmly believe HALF OF THEIR ACHIEVING THEIR BEST SCORES on the SAT or ACT is MENTAL … and HALF is academic foundation, test “smarts”, strategies, specific knowledge, and techniques. In our classes, we incorporate many ways to Achieve and Maintain Your Peak Mental Performance Zone which has proven extremely helpful for my students. These principles and practices are incorporated into all areas of our classes, and I now have written an 18 page Guide which every student receives as part of the class. Not long ago, I asked one of my top-scoring students (SAT 1540) if he had test anxiety. On the surface, he was very calm and focused, so I would never have guessed his answer. “That is my biggest problem on these
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exams.” At the other end of the spectrum, another student had been going through a very difficult time outside of our classes and it spilled over into his taking a baseline exam. About halfway through, he totally broke down, started crying, and kept repeating “I can’t do this. I can’t do this.” Of course, we stopped and talked about what was happening in his “real life”, he calmed down, reestablished his zone, and moved ahead. In the middle was a young lady, very calm on the surface with a quick mind that thought on multiple tracks at the same time. During the first part of our first class, a “get to know you and hear the philosophies underlying the class” for my students and their parents, I asked if she ever had test anxiety. It was like she had been struck by lightning. She nodded vigorously while her mom spoke at the same time saying, “She gets so nervous the night before an exam that she can hardly talk or think, and has a very hard time going to sleep.” We all have some test anxiety before a big exam, we are all human. But how we manage this and turn it into peak mental performance
throughout the test is very important. Very few of my students ever say they never get nervous, sometimes lose focus, go down “rabbit trails” in their thinking, and other symptoms of losing their peak mental performance zone. The differentiating factor is how much this disrupts their ability score at their best, and how they can handle it when it happens. FULL ANXIETY RANGE CHART: We begin by understanding what can
happen just before and during the exam by reviewing my Full Anxiety Range Chart. This can range from the right balance of calm and a little anxiety in or peak performance zone, through multiple attacks by what we call “Gremlins” that can take some students “down the rabbit hole” mentally, emotionally, and even physically. The key is understanding these are all attacks aimed at the Will, and then how to stop them in their tracks.
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