How to prepare for an exam

It’s raining buckets this morning, like it did a year ago when final exams had to be postponed due to flooding. But that’s not happening today.

Sec. #15’s exam is slotted for 3:30, STUDENTS-but the rest of you are welcome too, if you don’t want to wait ’til Thursday. We don’t have any presentations scheduled today, if any of you presenters from the other classes want to come and introduce yourselves to a fresh new audience.

Here’s the best test-prep advice I can pass along:

If you want really to do your best in an examination, fling away the book the day before, say to yourself, “I won’t waste another minute on this miserable thing, and I don’t care an iota whether I succeed or not.” Say this sincerely, and feel it; and go out and play, or go to bed and sleep, and I am sure the results next day will encourage you to use the method permanently. William James, “Gospel of Relaxation“

If you’ve been up all night cramming, in other words, good luck. You’ll need it. But if you’ve been diligent, have steeped yourself in the subject all semester long, and either went out to play or to an early bed last night, your luck will be the residue of design. You’ll do fine.

But don’t try too hard to relax.

It is needless to say that that is not the way to do it. The way to do it, paradoxical as it may seem, is genuinely not to care whether you are doing it or not.

Care tomorrow. Today, just show up and do your best.

Tags: Gospel of Relaxation