Last Minute Exam Stress

There is this particular type of stress that kicks in during exam season, which, in my opinion, is the worst one. Alongside the pressure you are under, the common lack of confidence that comes with it eats you alive. Not believing in yourself and having a constant fear of being unsuccessful can lead to worsening mental health. However, the silver lining is that you do have the ability to prevent this. 

What is often forgotten in these moments is that this feeling does not come from reality alone. The mind takes one temporary situation and makes it feel permanent and final. It convinces you that one exam will determine your whole future and shape the rest of your life, even though, when you really think about it, that is absolutely not true.

Students often feel like time is running out. However, lingering on this feeling will not change the outcome of your results. Forget about the clock, forget about how many hours you have to study and how many days you have until the exam. When you focus on time itself, stress takes over, and everything seems heavier than it actually is. The pressure that you create distorts your sense of control.

It is always possible not to listen to others, but you can never not listen to yourself. It is a fact that your thoughts don’t reflect reality; they shape it. Exposing yourself to constant negative affirmations like “I don’t have enough time” or “I wish I had started studying much earlier” will do nothing but set you back. The moment you actually believe that, you stop using the time you still have.

Even if it is the last day, you can still make a difference. The “all or nothing” mindset is just another way of choosing nothing. It is what makes a bunch of students perform less than they actually can. If you feel unprepared, even just reading a single mark scheme can save you a question on the day. With that in mind, imagine the place you’ll be after reading as many as you can. 

Time is something we cannot control, however, what we can control is how we choose to manage it. Still, I won’t deny the fact that this process is difficult and requires putting trust in yourself and your worth. However, you being on this page, reading this, already proves that you are willing to take action to improve, and that is all you need.

When exams are getting closer, schools and teachers can make you anxious. Their words can create an image in your mind that your outcome is destined for the worse. Speaking from personal experience, I get more stressed out when I listen to my teachers talk about how difficult it will be to raise my grade after a certain point. However, I realise that this stress only weighs on my mind until I open up past papers, and, after practising, I realise it is absolutely not true. 

Every exam, without exception, will follow patterns that you can easily familiarise yourself with. You don’t need to revise or learn every single bit of content from scratch, especially if you feel you are running out of time in your revision. Instead, focus on how questions are repeatedly phrased, how often they come up on your past papers, and what kind of answers they expect on the mark scheme. I promise you, once you learn those patterns and learn the common formatting of questions that exam boards often like to repeat, your work is mostly done.

With less than a month left before A-levels, my chemistry grade was barely a D. I started to dig into past papers and topical questions. No matter which year’s paper I work on now, I am able to achieve As and Bs consistently. The only method I used was becoming familiar with the exam technique itself until I knew each pattern by heart. 

Please stop measuring your chances by the fear of how fast your exams are approaching. Open your past papers, try each question and get some wrong; try again, again, and again until you can’t get it wrong. Your results won’t change based on how much time you have, but on how well you manage it from now on. 

Written by: Zeynep Bayındır