Taught another bajillion lessons today, video and in person. I was struck by how many of my students were repeating the same thought-mistakes. Self-doubt, anxiety, fixation on certain problems or aspects of the test–you name it, I saw it today. And what do all of these negative thought-vortices have in common? They all result from a basic inability to control one's emotions. Emotions simply cannot result in anything good on test day. Whether positive or negative, they deprive you of energy, focus, time—not a good thing. People might argue, hey, a healthy confidence is great to have on test day. But I have found that is simply not the case. A "healthy confidence" can make you much more ripe for making all kinds of careless errors. Also, if you're busy exuding your "healthy confidence," and you get to a surprisingly difficult question or group, you might feel that confidence crumble into another emotional state far worse than that. But if you have practiced the art of "showing no emotion," then you don't have to busy yourself exuding anything. You calmly make your way through the test, and when you get to something you cannot do, hey, no problem, you go around it, you eliminate and guess, save it for later–you have options, none of which are apparent if you're overcome by some emotion.
No one is ever going to make a movie about the "world's greatest standardized test takers" because when we test, we are as boring as watching paint dry. Seriously. We are not "fun to watch" because we do not display any visible "emotions" of any kind. Example: if I encounter a difficult math problem, and I'm getting pretty far into some analysis, I will look up from my work, realize that I must have missed the shortcut, and calmly leave that problem alone for a few minutes, while I work on the next one or two. Upon returning to the vexing problem, I am almost always able to see the shortcut right away.
None of this would be possible if I could not control my emotions while test taking. Which I do, of course, using my amazing Mike Technique, as outlined here, by a semi-frantic version of myself. Enjoy.
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