When you didn’t do well on a test

We all mess up tests from time to time. On the weeks of midterm and end of the terms, you would have at least one test or a writing assignment each day. You have to plan ahead and prepare for them during the weekend. Even after the preparation, you could fail. It’s okay. Don’t panic. I had that experience, too. It is just one of more than 10 tests you would take for the course. If your score is lower than C-, you may reconsider about taking the class. The important parts are how you deal with it and prepare for the next tests. For instance, I have very slow reading pace. Often, I couldn’t finish tests in time or go over the tests in time. I made plans based on the test formats. For example, if I have 70 multiple choice questions for 1 hour, I would plan to finish 12 questions per 10 minutes. In addition, I made test corrections. Although the same question do not appear on the next tests and quizzes(sometimes this does happen), you should know why you got the questions wrong. Did you spend enough time reviewing? Did you read the question carelessly? Did you overthink? You should figure out the reason to not repeat it next time.

Student A

When I didn’t do well on the tests, I just find something that I liked to do in order to release my stress. Sometimes reading a book you liked or listening to the music also helped. I felt we needed to know that messing up a test didn’t mean everything. It was more important to know why you got the questions wrong and how you could get them right next time. Although messing up a test was frustrating for me, I tried to recover from the disappointment in a short time so that the result of the test wouldn’t affect me too much. Also, I felt it was also important to give myself sometime to adapt to a new class. Besides, if you felt that you didn’t want to learn this course anymore, you could always talk to your guidance counselor to figure out if you wanted to drop the class.

Student Y