How to fail an exam. Success (almost) guaranteed!

I love presenting workshops on exam technique to adults. It’s immensely satisfying to explain the "magic" that helps some students sail through exams with flying colours. These are techniques that my adult students can easily adopt to help them succeed.

Adults returning to study often share how, at school, after failing an exam dismally, they put a brave face on, pretended to be cool and not to care. But in the safety of our classes they often open up. Some still burn with the shame of failure and occasionally break down in tears reliving the humiliation of their school days and failing exams.

When students are fearful, they don’t learn or remember easily. They clamp up - not a good start when going into an exam.

There’s often be a collective wail of despair when exam time comes around: “But I don’t know how to study. I don’t know how to answer the questions. I hate exams. I can’t do it.” 

In an effort to break the ice and have a laugh, I ask in all seriousness if anyone knows how to fail an exam. The looks say it all – “Oh crap, she’s lost the plot entirely, what do we do now?”

But of course they know how to fail an exam! They’ve done it often enough to be very familiar with the skills required. And the logic goes, if they know how to fail an exam, they also know the basics of how to pass – start by doing the opposite.

By working from the negative, it proves to each of them that they already know how to study! This lighthearted technique gets them to think about the problem differently, opens them up to another way of looking at the issue.

They already know what to do! Now all that remains is to choose which of the (opposite) actions they can incorporate into their lives with as little pain as possible.

This following is a somewhat tongue in cheek list, but still relevant with so many students working towards final year exams.

So, in a spirit of caring and sharing, during what is a very stressful time for many students, parents, caregivers and teachers, I present for your amusement:

How to fail an Exam:

Before:

• Attend as few classes as possible during the year 
• Sit at the back of the classroom and draw dirty pictures  
• Text friends during class 
• Sigh, moan and daydream 
• Disrupt the class as often as possible and get asked to leave 
• Don’t study - in any way shape or form - ever 
• Complain loud and often about how you’ll fail - negative self talk really helps
• Party the night before

During the exam:

• Don’t turn up 
• Cheat 
• Panic 
• Don’t read the question/s 
• Don’t answer the question/s 
• Answer the question with what you want to talk about rather than what is asked 
• In essays, when asked to present a rough outline, ignore the instruction
• Write illegibly (deliberately)
• In multiple-choice questions, tick all the options. Or none. Or scribble some out and circle others so the marker has no idea which is the answer you hope they'll notice

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but covers most of the tried and true methods my students had become expert at.

What else can you add?

Note: Most of my students went on to successfully pass their exams. There was no magic involved. They were interested in the courses, determined, enthusiastic and motivated to prove they could succeed.

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P. PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Workplace bullying.

This post is one in a series on workplace bullying for the 2012 A-Z Blogging challenge.

PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) can be described as:

an invisible injury occurring as a result of major traumatic experiences, including violence, harassment, assault, rape, accident, fire, explosion, disaster, or witnessing such events.
(from bullyonline) 

PTSD is a natural emotional reaction to a shocking and disturbing experience which has overwhelmed one's ability to cope. It causes significant impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning.

There is growing awareness and acceptance that PTSD can also result from an accumulation of many small, individually non-life-threatening incidents such as being exposed to prolonged and relentlessly abusive bullying. To differentiate, the term "Complex PTSD" is generally used.

The feelings and emotions resulting from serial bullying which are similar to those of PTSD include:

• Avoid discussing or thinking about the events
• Avoid going places that remind the person of the trauma
• Chronic gloominess
• Concentration is shot, often confused
• Catatonic. Some people experience an inability to get out of bed (this is very different to laziness)
• Distress at being asked to recall the events or being around people discussing bullying
• Detached, as if watching others from behind a screen
• Exhaustion which is not relieved by sleep
• Flashbacks may be common, with frequent distressing recollections of the events
• Flight or fight response is on constant alert
• General disinterest in life
• Guilty for being weak
• Hyper-vigilant
• Irritable
• Loss of libido
• Nervy
• Pacing the house at all hours of the night
• Recurrent nightmares - adds to sleep deprivation 
• Snappy
• Startles easily and frequently
• Sleep is disrupted constantly, may have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep
• Unable to find meaning or fun in life
• Vomiting or nausea at mention or discussion of the event

East side Gallery. Berlin. 2009.

Click here for information about stress.

Here tomorrow: Q. Qualities we instill in our children (which make it easier for them to be bullied)


There are many outstanding resources on line. A couple I find useful are Bullying. No way! an Australian resource for teachers and students, and a UK site Bully On Line. 

Minding the Workplace by David Yamada is regularly updated with interesting and useful articles and research, and eBossWatch on facebook links to articles about workplace bullying from around the world.

This is in no way an exhaustive list, and each country will no doubt have equally good or more relevant websites. If you're being bullied please seek advice from a professional health care practitioner experienced in this area. 

Over at jumpingaground I'm spending the month Drabbling using alliteration, often with an environmental theme.
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I Dared to Drabble for December

Last month (November) I entered a competition.

I'm not usually big on entering competitions, after all I never win, and it mostly seems waste of time. However this was one devised by Burrowers, Books & Balderdash who've introduced me to the beguiling art of Drabbling. I was delighted by their Drabbles, but also intimidated by the well crafted beauty of the pieces.

A Drabble is a story written in 100 words, no more, no less, (they're very strict about this) and since I was introduced to them earlier this year, I've been smitten. The process appeals to me. I like tinkering with words but tend to go on a bit, and this forces me to find better, briefer combinations of words. The challenge was to explore if I could produce something reasonably interesting in this condensed form.

I was nervous entering their December 'Dare', after all I felt like I was 'playing with the big boys' and well out of my depth. I thought I'd be scoffed at, not publicly (they're not like that) but, well, these people and their contributors are GOOD, and I'm in awe of them.

But I did it, I wrote, edited, surprised myself, clicked on 'send', felt sick, wished I could unsend, waited nervously, and I WON!!!!

Really! Two of the pieces I wrote were considered good enough to be part of the Advent Calendar that you'll find over at The Burrow.

To say I'm delighted is an understatement, but mostly I'm honoured that the judges considered that my Drabbles wouldn't tarnish the quality of their December contributions.

I'm not going to include my pieces here, because that wouldn't be in the spirit of an Advent Calendar. You'll have to pop over there and open the little boxes on the correct dates (remember it'll be a bit later than here due to the time difference) and wait for mine to appear on the 7th and 24th. The contents are far better than chocolate.

Enjoy!


You'll find my response on the December 4th picture of Ice Sculptures here.

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Interview preparation - speak up!

I want to follow up from yesterday's comment about interviews. If you don't like talking about yourself or your skills and talents at interviews, try the following suggestions, and let me know how it goes.

To get some idea of the more tricky questions, you could Google 100 most difficult job interview questions or 20 most challenging interview questions. No matter how bizarre they seem, they will have been asked at sometime in an interview, and it’s a good idea to be prepared! I guarantee it’ll help you when you get a really curly one thrown your way. Your brain will kick in with “ah, yes, I know how to handle this kind of question”, it's prepared and is less likely to freeze with fear. 

Take a deep breath, pause (this is a very important step) and slowly and calmly begin. You’ll appear more confident and assured if you don’t rush, even though you may be quaking inside.

The importance of pets!

The next step in interview preparation is to answer the questions aloud. Ideally you’d have an honest, yet tactful adult to assist, but for many people, that isn’t possible. In this case I often suggest to my clients that they practise in front of their pet if they have one; failing that, a compliant child or baby will do. 
I’m not being flippant. It really does help.

A respectful adult can, however, give valuable feedback, not only about the content of your answers, but also about your body language, which as you know is incredibly important in the whole process. It’s often stated that the interviewers opinion about a candidate is made within the first 30 seconds of an interview. That’s pretty scary stuff, particularly when you’re nervous already. So any constructive and supportive steps you can take are worth working on, well before you arrive.

Acknowledge your strengths 
It feels awkward for many of us to tell someone that we’re good at things, particularly those of us from cultures where we’re encouraged not to brag or gloat about how competent we are. This is a definite negative in an interview and you can lose your dream job if you don’t overcome that childhood training.

If you’re good at something, you need to share this at interview. If you think of it as sharing and informing, it might be more comfortable than if you think of it as ‘selling’ yourself. ("Selling" has a lot of negative overtones, more suited to a product, and it’s no wonder we feel uncomfortable with it, after all few of us want to be seen as a commodity).

There are a couple of things going on in the ‘talk it aloud’ practise, not least hearing your own voice stating your positive qualities in a confident, unapologetic tone. It helps you hear the um’s and ah’s, and to practice until these are, if not eliminated, then at least less frequent. If you sound like you don’t believe in yourself, how can you expect the interviewer to?

Sometimes it’s easier to say to your pet: 
“One of the things I’m really good at is ….”, 
“I want to work at (insert name of company here) because ….” 
“How would my friends describe me? My best friends describe me as loyal …. "

It’s ok to repeat a question occasionally if you go blank, it lets your brain catch up.

When you hear yourself speaking, you’ll detect if you’re convincing or not. The benefit of pets is that they don’t bore quickly and you can rehearse frequently. And if you think you’ll become stale, remember the fantastic actors in long running shows who can move us to tears even though they may have preformed the same show for weeks or months. It can be done!

Your interview questions
Remember to think of some questions you want to ask the interviewer/s. Again, Google is a great resource.This invitation usually comes at the end of the interview just as you’re breathing a sigh of relief that it’s almost over. If you haven’t thought it out, (and asked it aloud in the privacy of your home to your cat) you’re likely to blurt out the most inane thing like I did some years ago - my stomach still sinks at the memory.

In summary:

• prepare
• educate the interviewer/s about your skills and strengths
• practise, practise, practise - aloud!
• arrive early, breathe deeply and give it your best

Good luck!

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