Exam nerves real cause

考試焦慮的真正原因

High Anxiety

高度焦慮

Anxious exam candidate’s problem is the run up, not the main event

焦慮考生的問題是在準(zhǔn)備階段，而不是臨場(chǎng)階段

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1 EXAMS ARE nerve-racking, especially for those already of an anxious disposition. The silence of the hall; the ticking of the clock; the beady eye of the invigilator; the smug expression of the person sitting at the neighbouring desk who has finished 15 minutes early. It therefore seems hardly surprising that those who worry about taking tests do systematically worse than those who do not. What is, perhaps, surprising, according to research published recently in Psychological Science by Maria Theobald at the Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education and her colleagues, is that it is not the pressure of the exam hall which causes the problem. It is the pressure of revision.

?人緊張的時(shí)候，特別是對(duì)于那些已經(jīng)有焦慮情緒的人來說。大廳里的寂靜；時(shí)鐘的滴答聲；監(jiān)考老師機(jī)警的眼神；鄰桌的考生提前15分鐘完成考試時(shí)的得意表情。那些擔(dān)心考試的人比不擔(dān)心的表現(xiàn)得更差，這種現(xiàn)象似乎并不讓人驚訝。令人驚訝的是，根據(jù)萊布尼茲教育研究和信息研究所的瑪麗亞-西奧博爾德及其同事最近發(fā)表在《心理科學(xué)》上的研究，導(dǎo)致這一問題的不是臨場(chǎng)的壓力，而是復(fù)習(xí)的壓力。

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2 Dr Theobald theorised that if anxiety was truly interfering with a student’s ability to transfer known information from brain to paper via pen, then those with high levels of it would perform worse in a real exam, when it actually mattered, than in either a mock beforehand or during online practice sessions. Moreover, she expected this performance-drop to correlate with levels of self-reported exam nerves.

Theald博士推斷，如果焦慮真的干擾了學(xué)生通過筆將已知信息從大腦轉(zhuǎn)移到紙上的能力，那么那些焦慮程度高的學(xué)生在真正的考試中，真正重要的時(shí)候，會(huì)比事先的模擬考試或在線課程中的表現(xiàn)更差。此外，她預(yù)計(jì)這種成績(jī)下降與自我報(bào)告的考試緊張程度相關(guān)。

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3 She therefore worked with 309 German medical students who were preparing for their final state exam, the most important that they take. This test consists of 230 questions split into three five-hour sessions over three days.

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因此，她與309名德國(guó)醫(yī)科學(xué)生一起工作，這些學(xué)生正在準(zhǔn)備最后的國(guó)家考試，這是他們參加的最重要的考試。這個(gè)考試由230個(gè)問題組成，在三天內(nèi)分成三個(gè)五小時(shí)的考試。

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4 During the 100 days before the actual papers, all her volunteers used a digital-learning platform which presented them with old exam questions and logged their performance. They also sat a mock examination, clearly presented to them as such, 40 days before the real thing. To assess their levels of anxiety, they were asked, every day for 40 days in the run up to the real exam and also on the day of that exam, to respond on a five-point scale to statements like, “I feel tense and nervous”. On the day of the mock they were similarly asked to rate statements like, “I worry whether I have studied enough”.

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在大考前的100天里，所有志愿者都使用了一個(gè)數(shù)字學(xué)習(xí)平臺(tái)，該平臺(tái)向他們提供了先前的考試題目并記錄了他們的表現(xiàn)。在大考前40天，他們還參加了一次模擬考試。為了評(píng)估他們的焦慮程度，在大考前的40天里，他們每天都被要求對(duì)五點(diǎn)諸如 "我感到緊張 "之類的陳述做出回應(yīng)。在模擬考試當(dāng)天，他們同樣被要求對(duì)諸如 "我擔(dān)心我是否學(xué)得足夠 "這樣的陳述進(jìn)行打分。

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5 What Dr Theobald found was not what she expected. Anxiety on the day of the test did not predict exam performance at all. What did predict it was the level of knowledge a student displayed in the mock exam and the earlier digital-learning activities. Those who performed well in these also did well in the real thing, regardless of how anxious they were on the day.

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西奧博德博士發(fā)現(xiàn)的情況與她的預(yù)期不同?？荚嚠?dāng)天的焦慮完全不能預(yù)測(cè)考試成績(jī)。能夠預(yù)測(cè)考試成績(jī)的是學(xué)生在模擬考試和早期數(shù)字學(xué)習(xí)活動(dòng)中表現(xiàn)出來的知識(shí)水平。那些在這些活動(dòng)中表現(xiàn)良好的學(xué)生在真正的考試中也表現(xiàn)良好，不管他們?cè)诳荚嚠?dāng)天有多焦慮。

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6 What actually hampered students, it turned out, were high levels of anxiety during the weeks before the exam took place. The greater a student’s anxiety in the days before the exam, the lower his or her knowledge-gain was during that period, leaving that student with less material to regurgitate during the exam itself.

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事實(shí)證明，真正阻礙學(xué)生考試表現(xiàn)的是考試前幾周的高度焦慮。學(xué)生在考試前幾天的焦慮程度越高，他或她在此期間的知識(shí)收獲就越少，從而使該學(xué)生在考試期間可以照搬的材料也就更少。

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7 And this, paradoxically, is a positive discovery, for it suggests a change of approach to revision by the anxious might help improve their results. Dr Theobald notes that test-anxiety is at its worst when students have low expectations of success and simultaneously know that passing the exam is exceedingly important. To reduce this anxiety, she proposes a two-fold strategy for students to consider as they revise. First, they can raise their belief in their own abilities by reminding themselves of just how much they know. Second, they can diminish the significance of the test by reminding themselves that, while it is important, it is not a life or death situation. It really isn’t. Really…

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矛盾的是，這是一個(gè)積極的發(fā)現(xiàn)，因?yàn)樗砻鹘箲]的人改變復(fù)習(xí)方法可能有助于提高他們的成績(jī)。Theobald博士指出，當(dāng)學(xué)生對(duì)成功的期望值較低，同時(shí)又知道通過考試是極其重要的時(shí)候，考試焦慮是最嚴(yán)重的。為了減少這種焦慮，她提出了一個(gè)兩方面的策略，供學(xué)生在復(fù)習(xí)時(shí)考慮。首先，他們可以通過提醒自己知道多少東西來提高對(duì)自己能力的信心。第二，他們可以通過提醒自己，雖然考試很重要，但它不是一個(gè)生死攸關(guān)的情況，來降低考試的意義。它真的不是。真的..