Vocational School of Justice
YGS IS ONLY AN EXAM’
Prospective university students started the count down for Transition to Higher Education Examination (YGS), the first step to overcome on the way to higher education. As 2 million 265 thousand 902 students enrolled for the exam, the experts strongly remind that the “exam is not a matter of life and death, that it is just an exam”.
Dr. Yasemin Meral Öğütçü, Lecturer, IUE Department of Psychology, made the following recommendations to students, who are taking the exam on March 12, to overcome their anxiety. “We usually experience anxiety when we are faced with something unexpected. We need to learn to control our thoughts to begin with. Negative thinking hinders success. The body doesn’t react well and concentration of thoughts is inhibited. Students should not focus on failure. Developing negative thoughts result in preconceptions about self,” said Dr. Öğütçü.
Students need to stay away from excitement, tension, and pessimism, indicated Dr. Öğütçü and she said that right amount of anxiety, on the contrary, was useful. She recommended students to stay away from negative thoughts such as, ‘I won’t succeed’, ‘I will fail’, ‘everyone else is more successful than me’, ‘I will forget everything I know and won’t be able to solve any problems at the exam’. Dr. Öğütçü stated that such thoughts would hinder success, positive thinking would be more efficient, and that parents need to avoid causing extra stress about the exam.
‘Reward yourself’
Dr. Öğütçü, who pointed that this exam was a beginning, and students would be faced with many more exams in the upcoming period, stated the following:
“Life is long. You will have many chances to make a great start. Read the exam instructions carefully. Take a look at the questions. Decide how you will use the time efficiently and which questions you would start solving first. Start with the easy ones. It would decrease excitement, it saves you time and increases motivation. Take small notes next to the question you cannot solve at the moment, you can always come back to that question. Don’t waste time trying to solve it and don’t get distracted as it would cause you to get anxious again. Don’t let your anxiety get the best of you; remember that you can cope with it. Make sure to reward yourself after the exam.”