Think about the dreams you had when you were hungry just a few hours ago. You may have dreamt of a chocolate bar or a bowl of ice cream or a piece of lasagna. Suddenly you heard your stomach rumble. This is the sound of gastric juices being released into your stomach and your stomach anticipating food coming down your esophagus. Your body reacted as if it had a bowl of ice cream in front of you. Just as you can fool your body about food, you can also trick your brain into seeing and feeling things.
Fear of being at a large university with children that they did not grow up with is absolutely frightening for the average teenager. This imagined fear then becomes a strong bulwark that they cannot overcome; consequently, they convinced themselves that they could not do well.
Now you the test taker, need to convince yourself that you will succeed on standardized exams.
You need to close your eyes and think about the exam. In your dream, you will see yourself checking off the exam question answer sheet. And you will visualize the BeatTheTest logo in the bottom right hand corner. You will imagine yourself being calm and doing the math on your scratch paper. You will then imagine yourself filling in the boxes of the answer sheet. You will imagine your school assistant principal or guidance counselor congratulating you on how well you did.
You say to yourself that you are not good in math. That is no excuse. It is not as if you are five feet tall and are being asked to dunk a basketball. Imagine yourself teaching word problems to a classroom of fifth graders. Show them how to multiply and divide correctly, and then prove your answers to them.
After you have finished with the fifth grade class, teach a sixth grade class. Remember, you are teaching them in your head. The kids are waiting to hear the tricks and secrets from you. You are their teacher and their guide. Do not fail them!!!
Now visulaize teaching a class of eighth and ninth graders. Visualize them asking you how you solved for X. Why does a triangle have only one hundred and eighty degrees? Explain this to them. Once you let your Achievement Mechanism free, your imagination will flourish. Always remind yourself that you can achieve whatever you dream.
Help your daughter imagine success by bringing stories of people like her who have achieved amazing things. Our media are replete with stories of women who have done extraordinary things. Show her pictures of teachers, doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, judges and bankers that are women. In today’s day and age, we have tons of successful women of all shapes and colors. This will help your daughter correlate success with hard work. Once your child learns to appreciate hard work, she will like it. You will have turned on her Achievement Mechanism.
Show your son images of Ronald Reagan or even Bill Clinton. These two men have achieved amazing things on their own. They did not come from wealthy families. Some would even argue that they did not even have full time parents. So imagine what your kids can do with both parents and our BeatTheTest standardized test preparation guides.