The Psychology of Passing Exams (Part-2)

SELF-MOTIVATION
Great souls have wills, feeble ones have only wishes.
Chinese proverb.

Candidates who do not persist with their desire to succeed do so out of choice! They have chosen not to exercise self-discipline and persistence to work diligently toward their goal. You choose to be a success or failure: ‘Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you ‘re right’. Realize that nothing is final until you except it as such. We all make mistakes, we all fall down and we have all at some time given up under adversity. However, to stay down once you ‘ve fallen is a matter of choice. Remember the words of the Jedi Master Yoda: ‘Try not. Do, or not. There is no try’.

‘Why Do you Do the Things you Do:’ if you cannot answer this question, you are just going through the motions, drifting. ‘I guess I’ m doing what I’ m supposed to becomes the theme of your life. This lack of total commitment may keep you from regressing, but it does not encourage peak performance. Successful candidates always have a purpose in mind for their actions. The quality of your life is directly related to your willingness to put your plans into action. Purpose creates motivation. If you want the power of purpose, you need to: identify your mission; and always act in a way that will further your efforts to reach it.

Create a priority purpose—a mission for yourself. Ask yourself:

1. Why do I do the things I do?

2. What is most important to me?

3. What am I willing to invest?

4. How much am I willing to endure?

5. What am I willing to give up?

6. How much responsibility am I willing to take?

7. Am I willing to begin where I am?

8. Am I willing to settle for anything less than my full potential? Answering these questions will aid you in determining your mission. Focus on that mission in your thoughts and actions.

To further your efforts to reach your mission, ask yourself:

1. Do I understand the aims and requirements of the examination?

2. Do I have the determination for serious study? Do I give top priority to study at the
expense of family and friends?

3. Does my employment provide adequate experience? Do I use my employment to gain experience?

4. Have I discussed my plans with a supervisor or sympathetic consultant Pathologist? Do others feel I have the aptitude for Pathology?

5. Can I accept constructive criticism from those who want to help me? You must understand that in any endeavour, obstacles and conflict are inevitable. In your efforts to overcome these factors, at some stage you will experience the pain of present limitation. The only way to overcome the limitation is to push through the limitation toward your objective.

The Psychology of Passing Exams (Part-1)

POSITIVE MINDSET
As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
Proverbs 23:7

The essence of any successful candidate’s mental attitude is positive thinking. If you except success, you get success, but if you except failure, you eventually get failure. Negativism is one of life’s great cop-outs because it allows you to accept life’s little failures without embarrassment. If you except to fail-----and you have communicated this belief to those around you---you will not look that bad when you do fail. But if you except and communicate success, then fail, you end up looking a fool. It is risky to except positive things to happen to you but positive self-expectancy is the only sure way of being successful. ‘what can be conceived and believed can be achieved’---but it takes more than saying ‘I can to pass exams or achieve any other goal..

College panel recommends placing less importance on SAT and ACT scores

Some people enjoy standardized tests. The lack of open-ended responses. The comfort that there is only one correct answer. The cute little corresponding bubbles.
I'm not one of those people. Give me an essay, or even a fill-in-the-blank test, and I'm as cool as a cucumber. But give me a multiple-choice, standardized test and I'm as rotten as a mushroom (no offense to the fungus lovers, but I'm not one of those people, either.)

Luckily for people like me, a shift away from standardized tests may be in the works, at least in the realm of some college admissions offices.
Earlier this fall, the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC) released this report, recommending that college admissions place less emphasis on standardized testing and more emphasis on high school achievement and curriculum.

(If you're like me, you don't like mushrooms …and you don't want to read the whole report. Here's an article that provides a good summary)
In addition to the problems with the test itself, the panel found that even test-prep courses provide unfair advantages. The private courses, funded not by schools but by students and/or their parents, leave those that can't afford to take them at a disadvantage.

I didn't take a test-prep course. I'm not actually sure if I could have afforded it or not. At the time, all I knew was that I was not willing to sacrifice my Saturday mornings. Maybe my SAT score suffered, but my weekends sure didn't.
Back to the point- will we see a change in the college admission process?
Some universities have already made SAT and ACT test scores optional, including Wake Forest University.

But it's hard to say if other universities will follow suit. Some argue that without the SAT, admissions offices would have to rely on less reliable standards such as GPA, which can vary in inflation from school to school.
Only time will tell how many universities adhere to the panel's recommendations.
In the meantime, what is your opinion?

Would you like to see a decrease in the importance of SAT and ACT scores? Would you still take the standardized tests, for your own personal satisfaction? Did your standardized test score help or hurt your college admission process?
On this test, there's more than one correct answer :-)