Assessments: the anxiety, the preparation, the fear!

It is Monday again already. Trust me, I don’t like it either. But sitting here going through my lecture notes in preparation for my mid semester exams, I couldn’t help but wonder how many assessments I’ve had in life and how for each and every single one of them, I have the same reaction.

I start overthinking the assessment weeks before it happens. Be it an exam, an interview or just a test, I tend to overthink how prepared I am. And I know it’s the same for many of my readers. With Monday already here and just a week to my mid semester exams, here I am trying to cram 7 weeks of studies from 8 different courses into one week of extensive studies. I know some of you even wait till the night of the exam to study. I salute you, president general of all the nations. I bow to your excellency the president of crammers.

Sometimes, I ask myself why we even need assessments. Can’t we all just swear we understand the course material and that we will try not to forget it? I promise, we do understand it. As for not forgetting, tell that to the 7 other classes I’m taking this semester. The important thing is you trust my word ok? Just believe me!

Aside my aversion to assessments, this blog post is actually about the way we feel anxious about assessments, how to deal with the anxiety and some tips on how I prepare for my assessments. Also, the fear but quick tip, we don’t want to allow the fear to feel like it actually matters.

So the anxiety: it is absolutely normal to be anxious about an assessment. I mean, much like adulting, most of the assessments we take are not things we’ve done before so it is expected that we are actually anxious about it. What is important however is ensuring that we don’t let that anxiety control our actions in the lead up to the assessment. So how do you deal with it?

Most of our anxiety stems from the amount of preparation or lack thereof we have towards that assessment. I for one know that when I am adequately prepared for an assessment, I tend to feel less anxious. In fact, I actually look forward to the opportunity to display my knowledge. It’s more like when you buy new clothes over the summer and can’t wait for school to resume so that you wear them and show them off. The exact opposite of this is true for when I am not prepared at all, or I am just partially prepared for the assessment. I tend to feel something akin to being physically sick when I think about the assessment. And trust me, that is not a good feeling. All this to say, the surest way to deal with assessment anxiety is to prepare adequately for the assessment. Make sure you plan ahead of time how you want to tackle the assessment. If it is an exam for example, you can make sure that right from the beginning of the semester, you take notes, you ask       questions, and you actually study the notes you take. Don’t be like those students who only take notes for the aesthetics. If it is an interview, Google common interview questions and have your friends practice them with you. You will be shocked at how helpful it is to have someone ask you these questions and you actually answer them. I for one know that my last interview practice with my good friend Kelvin really helped me prepare for the interview and calmed my anxiety. Finally, be kind to yourself. Try to eat well and most importantly, rest well. It is an assessment; you won’t be the first person to fail one but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it your all.

Lastly, let me introduce you to a very brilliant tool I use to prepare for my exams: Notebook LM. My first encounter with Notebook LM was through TikTok. A lady made a video about its abilities, and I decided to give it a try myself. I instantly fell in love with it. So, go to Google and type Notebook LM. Open the first link and click on create a new notebook. The user interface is extremely simple and straightforward. Just add your resource and navigate to what you want to do next. Whether you want to generate summaries on the resource or you want to generate a podcast on the resource that you can listen to or you want to see possible questions that can be asked about the resource and their answers, the possibilities are endless. I found that uploading one resource at a time and working through it before creating another notebook is more efficient so you may also try that. There are also so many other videos on YouTube explaining the other amazing features it has be sure to check those out as well.

Let's take a look at Notebook LM:

1. Go to the website

2. Click on create new then upload your resource. You can even attach links from other websites. Remember your resource should follow the extension format that is stipulated. 

3. After your resource is loaded, you can type notes on the resource and create a chat about the content. 

4. And for my favorite part, generate the podcast like conversation by clicking on notebook guide and then on load to load the conversation. Have fun! Bonus point, you also get a nice summary of yoru resource plus the questions I spoke about earlier. Have fun studying!

Till we meet again to discuss the issues life throws at us, stay safe and be kind to yourself!