Colman Noctor: Instead of giving yourself a hard time about your exam anxiety, embrace it

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We spend a month every year telling young people that the Leaving Cert is not the ‘be all and end all’ of their lives. As a 43 year old, I can confidently say this is true. However, as a psychotherapist, I'm aware it is everything for current sixth-year students.

This year there appears to be an eerie absence of the usual column inches on exam stress-management advice. Even the well-worn joke about the guaranteed good Irish weather in the first two weeks of June for exams is being trotted out less frequently. The most likely reason for this is that many have opted not to sit their Leaving Cert exams but to go down the predicted grade route. (None of this applies to the Junior Cert as it's been cancelled.) However, it could also be that in the pandemic preoccupation of the last year, this cohort has been forgotten. Or perhaps we are burnt out from discussing anxiety and stress since the start of the pandemic and some degree of compassion fatigue has set in?

Though there's an absence of the traditional Leaving Certificate build-up, there are still a high number of students preparing to sit their exams as usual. According to provisional figures from the State Examinations Commission, 88% of Leaving Certificate students have chosen a hybrid approach of sitting exams and receiving accredited grades in one or more subjects. Just 2% are opting for exam results only with 5% opting for accredited grades and no exams.

When the state exams get underway on June 9, many students (and their parents) will experience high levels of stress and anxiety. It is crucial to acknowledge the inevitability of these emotions and to try to use these feelings to your advantage, rather than becoming overwhelmed.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Anxiety often arises from the fear of the unknown - situations like a driving test, a job interview or an exam amplify this uncertainty. Certain levels of anxiety are useful when they create ‘surmountable stress’, fuelling our motivation, driving us to prepare and take action.

We need to learn how to use anxiety to assist us, rather than cripple us. Sometimes it is our imaginary expectations of what the exam experience will be like that can influence and affect us. We can all become consumed with the fear of something going wrong - the ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ - and while in some cases it can materialise, in most incidences it does not. As I say to my clients at exam time, 99% will report that the actual exam anxiety was not as bad as they expected.

Instead of giving yourself a hard time about your exam anxiety, embrace it. No one will deny that a state exam is a stressful life event and so try to channel the inevitable anxiety into something more productive than panic. For example, write summary points, answer past exam questions, take a break to do something completely different like vigorous exercise.

Anxiety and stress can either drive us on, or immobilise us, and often these outcomes are determined by whether you can stay in control of your stress, or allow your stress to control you.

Remember that anticipatory anxiety is normal and remind yourself that by its very ‘anticipatory nature’ it is highly likely to pass or subside ten minutes into the first exam.

However, this reality does not negate the fact that many students will report fears of drawing a blank in the exam situation, where they don’t know anything and are unable to remember everything they have learned. (My mother is aged 76 and she still has the classic Leaving Cert dream where this happens). Although the phenomenon of this fear is common, the incidence of someone actually freezing in an exam situation is minuscule. I have heard of it happening twice in my 25-year career of supporting young people through state exams on an annual basis. 

Fear of the unknown

 The main reason for the anxiety may not because you are under-prepared, instead it is often because the process of approaching any situation where the outcome is unknown creates fear. We can become consumed by the unknowns and as a result become immobilised by the lack of control we have over the outcome. This can lead to panic.

However, the best preparation for the unknown is to remind ourselves of the ‘knowns’ and attempt to reassure ourselves that we have prepared for this event and we are as ready as we can be for what comes up in the exam, and this calm inner dialogue can help us to manage those panicky feelings.

Remind yourself that you have prepared for this and that very few people ever feel ‘fully prepared’ and that is to be expected. But most importantly you need to trust your process. Avoid comparing your preparation to the preparation of others, as it is the human default position to believe you have not done as much as someone else which often has no factual basis.

The Leaving Cert is about you and no one else. Try to take control of your anxiety/ stress and use it to motivate you to consolidate what you know already, rather than allowing it to distract you with the worst-case scenario outcomes. When the anxious voice in your head starts to dominate, invite two other influences to join the conversation, namely context and perspective. This will help you to challenge your anxious thoughts and manage the unwelcome guest, anxiety. Also, always remember that anxiety is only here for a flying visit and soon the exams will be over and ‘this too will pass’.

New approach needed 

 These are strange times to be doing a state exam and it is important to acknowledge this. However, if the last 14 months has shown us anything, it is that there is often more than one way of doing things and we can change what previously seemed insurmountable.

Has 2020/21 offered us an opportunity to overhaul some of the outdated and rudimentary ways in which we have always done things? If so, let’s hope the traditional Leaving Cert – so often a funnel for stress - is top of that list.

It is a well-established fact that we all learn in different ways, and why this does not translate into the understanding that we need to assess learning with a similar degree of variety is beyond me. Let’s hope that one of the good things to emerge from the pandemic pause is a continuation of alternative options like predicted grades, a continuous and more creative approach to assessment and with a bit of luck this will result in a reduction in Leaving Cert exam pressure and stress for future students.