HOW TO OVERCOME FEAR OF EXAM?Everyone gets nervous on the eve of exams. Even very smart, confident students with consistently high academic performance. I would even say that, first of all, students with high academic performance, since they are the ones who attach great importance to the exam situation. The exam is perceived as a difficult, stressful situation for two reasons: 1) Due to very high mental stress. The main task of the session is to memorize a huge amount of material in a short period. This is objectively difficult, since the resources of our psyche are not limitless. But it is quite possible to learn how to work during a session painlessly and even with pleasure, if you know a few simple rules (see my article “Secrets of a successful session”). 2) Fear of the exam situation itself. In this short message to you, dear students, I want to recommend you several recipes for coping with your exam fears. Fear is a very necessary and useful feeling in our lives. Any person has only two engines of his progress: pleasure and fear, and nothing else. If the teacher is an interesting and intelligent person, and you feel that one-on-one communication with him can bring you pleasure, then this can be an excellent motive for preparing for the exam and a means of optimal preparation before taking it. In this case, a recipe will be useful 1: imagine in detail the situation of the conversation with the teacher. Imagine in detail how you answer the questions on the ticket with dignity and interest, how the teacher asks you additional questions, and you answer them with enthusiasm. You see that the teacher enjoys the dialogue with you and feel that you are communicating not just with a person who will evaluate you, but first of all with an older, pleasant and experienced colleague. You like the conversation, and, in the end, its result in the form of a grade does not matter, but the interesting and exciting process itself is important. Each of you will have your own “pleasant” picture, draw it in detail periodically while preparing for the exam and at the magical time of transition from sleep to wakefulness. This is an intermediate state when consciousness is already emerging from sleep, but the eyes are still closed. It is important not just to see the situation from the outside, but to feel the moment of joyful confidence and success. Then the brain and body will remember it and reproduce it during the exam. If you feel that a conversation with a teacher is unlikely to give you pleasure and the picture of success is not being drawn, then resort to 2 recipes: allow yourself to be afraid! Thank your fear for being with you. After all, if it doesn’t exist, you won’t learn anything and will definitely fail the exam! You need your fear, and let it be with you during the exam. You will come there not with an empty head, but with a wealth of knowledge and will definitely find what to answer to the teacher. It’s okay if your fear suddenly manifests itself during the exam and you feel like you’re seeing the questions on the ticket for the first time. This is due to nervous overstrain: we studied a lot and for a long time, we became overexcited. In fact, you know and remember everything. Our memory is well-organized; if you have thoroughly stuffed something into it at least once recently with the goal of reproducing it soon, you will certainly retrieve this information. Just sit down with your ticket, look out the window, take a deep breath, exhale, sit quietly and the information itself will emerge from the depths of your memory. Don’t worry about the fact that during a conversation with the teacher, your hands will shake or you will feel that you are blushing and your speech is not very clear. Everything is fine. All teachers are sympathetic to students’ anxiety; this is completely normal, and for most it’s even pleasant: “If you’re nervous, it means you take the subject and me seriously.” Don’t worry about your health, just don’t be silent, but tell me what you wrote while preparing for the answer. And all will be well! Your fear will do you a good service! And finally, recipe 3: honest and detailed!