In the past couple of months I haven’t been doing good on tests in general. I have severe anxiety as well and the tests I do worst in are APUSH tests. This is a problem that I don’t understand at all because I can do good on essays(in APUSH), short quizzes, labs(in science classes), projects, and etc. It’s just something with me and tests and Idk what to do about it. I study for hours a day and I am still disappointed of my test scores. How should I go about this? Any tips would be appreciated!
Anxiety never helps!!! You need to get it under control through relaxation, proper breathing, moving tight fingers etc. Understand that worrying about getting a poor score pretty much guarantees it. What is the worst possible outcome? Could you survive it? The worst won’t happen and you can survive. Your value of yourself as a person is not determined by test scores.
As others often point out, look over tests and figure out what areas you do well and what is routinely difficult. Develop a strategy to improve lower areas by focus on components of poorer areas by study and practice of component parts.
The amount of time studying does not guarantee a better performance. Memorizing lots of stuff foes not help. Learning a concept with its components and vocabulary is much more helpful. You want to explain or tell the story of the concept…what happens, why, how, etc. How does one concept relate to another. A file cabinet analogy may be helpful. As you memorize a factoid, you pitch it into a file cabinet. The test occurs and you are left scrambling through your mental file cabinet to find the appropriate factoid by recognizing it. When you are learning a concept, you organize components into a file folder with a name and stow it in your mental file cabinet. Develop another file and store it. You will end up with an organized mental file cabinet you can search and use. So your choice is a random bunch of stuff versus organized groups of stuff. Ultimately, you will discover that information in several files overlap. That is what you want…moving among information.
Think about how you are studying and how well it works for you. Personally, I have never liked or used specific study strategies because they seem constraining. Organize and approach your learning and how it works for you. You have learned megascads of stuff, but have now hit a snag. You have the experience to work through lessons.