Continuing this series of practical articles to help you and your children – Helping your Child Succeed in School, and test taking, in this article we discuss how we can work with our children in helping them prepare for exams, and getting through school.

Kids are intelligent enough to understand comprehend the world around them. They will also be willing to do something if they understand why, although this might need to be reinforced by some ‘rewards’. Here are some tips to consider.

Talk to your child about testing. It’s helpful for children to understand why schools give tests and to know the different kinds of tests they will take. Explain what tests are and how the process works.

Discuss with your child that occasionally, he or she will take “standardized” tests. Explain that these tests use the same standards to measure student performance across the state or even across the country. Every student takes the same test according to the same rules.

Don’t place so much emphasis on your child’s test scores that you lose sight of their well being. Too much pressure can affect the test performance – you do not want your child to think that you will only love them if they do well on tests.

Encourage your child. Praise him or her for the things that she does well. If your child feels good about herself, she will do her best on a test. Children who are afraid of failing are more likely to become anxious when taking tests and more likely to make mistakes.

Do try plan ahead and introduce a small amount of revision everyday, even if it is only 15 minutes.

Avoid test anxiety. It’s good for your child to be concerned about taking a test. It’s not good for them to develop “test anxiety.” Test anxiety is worrying too much about doing well on a test. It can mean disaster for your child. Students with test anxiety can worry about success in school and about their future success. They can become very self-critical and lose confidence in their abilities. Instead of feeling challenged by the prospect of success, they become afraid of failure. If your child worries too much about taking tests, you can help to reduce the anxiety by encouraging the child to do the following things. This has the opposite effect to what you need to achieve.

Make sure there is plenty of time to do other activities that allows your child to feel relaxed and content. A content child is likely to do better in the tests.

Get away from “cramming” the night before. This will likely increase your anxiety, which will interfere with clear thinking. Get a good night’s sleep. A light flick through the notes is better.

Go through the test mechanics – how to do the test:

• When you get the test, read the directions carefully before you begin work. If you don’t understand how to do something, ask the teacher to explain.
• Look quickly at the entire text to see what types of questions are on it (multiple choice, matching, true/false, essay).
• See if different questions are worth different numbers of points. This will help you to determine how much time to spend on each part of the test.
• Do the easiest questions first
• Do not spend too long on a question, move on to the next question if you cannot answer or your mind goes blank. Do not spend time worrying about it. Come back to the unfinished questions at the end.

These tips will help get the best out of both you as the parent and your children. In the next article, we will talk about what happens after the exam.

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