- In this video, we want to consider how we can show up
as our best self on exam day to do our absolute best
because I don't know about you,
but personally, I'm a nervous test taker.
I get a lot of anxiety before taking an exam
and here's some things that I've done
that have really helped me out.
The first tip is to arrive early.
You don't want to be cutting it close
and run into traffic and you're all stressed out
because you're delayed getting to the exam.
Maybe you get there too late to even take the exam that day.
So I recommend you arrive early.
And, by the way, when you get there,
I do not recommend sitting in your car
and looking over your notes that you've been studying.
If you're not ready by now, you're not ready
and a few moments in the car
is probably not going to make the difference.
What it might do, though, is stress you out thinking,
oh, I'm not sure I remember this exactly.
How can I remember this?
You need to remind yourself that you've already prepared.
That's why you're there.
Don't stress yourself out by looking through your notes
moments before you walk into the exam.
And like I said, I'm a nervous test taker.
I like to calm my nerves and let me give you
a couple strategies for doing that.
One strategy I learned watching the Winter Olympics
several years ago.
There was a U.S. short track speed skater named Apolo Ohno
and before he would race,
I noticed he was on the ice yawning
and I'm thinking, is he bored?
He's in the Olympics.
Why is he yawning?
And then, one of the announcers explained
that he did that to relax, to calm down,
to calm his nerves, and I thought, huh,
I wonder if that would work on a Cisco exam?
So I tried it.
Literally, I would go into the exam center
and before I would take the exam,
I'd (yawning) take a deep, deep yawn
to sort of calm my nerves a little bit.
And yes, it did help.
Since then, I've learned, what I think,
is an even better way of calming your nerves.
There's a great book called "Presence" by Amy Cuddy.
She's got a TED Talk, if you want to search for that.
And in that TED Talk and in her book "Presence",
she talks about the concept of a power pose.
A power pose is when you're standing
like you're a powerful person.
Maybe you're standing like Wonder Woman
or you're standing like Superman
where your hands are on your hips,
your head is up, you look very confident.
You take that posture of confidence
and Amy Cuddy says that research has shown
standing like that in that power pose,
that powerful posture.
If you do that for two minutes, that will decrease cortisol
and it will increase testosterone in both men and women.
That's going to lower your anxiety, your nervousness,
and it's going to boost your confidence.
In fact, I've literally done that
the last couple of items I've taken a Cisco exam.
I would go into the restroom beforehand
and in one of the stalls, I would, no kidding,
stand there with hands on hips looking up
with this powerful pose and I did that for two minutes.
You know what?
It works, it really does help.
I recommend you give it a shot.
And next, I recommend you determine your required pace
because you don't want to find yourself
with 10 minutes to go and 25 questions to answer.
Let's say that you've got an hour and a half
to take the exam and just to make the math really easy,
let's say that you have 90 questions.
Well, at that rate, you would need to answer
one question per minute.
That's a little aggressive, but to keep the math simple,
let's say that we've got to answer one question per minute.
Now, some questions are going to take longer
than other questions.
If you have to do a Simlet
or you have to do some sort of configuration
or you have to look at a lot of exhibits.
That could take longer.
Some questions, though, they may be really short
multiple choice questions, which we can read
and answer in 10 or 15 seconds.
So I don't want you to check your pace
when you're five or 10 minutes into the exam.
Give it some time to average out.
I like to wait about 30 minutes into the exam
and see how am I doing?
Again, on this 90 minute exam, in our example,
let's say that 30 minutes have elapsed
and I look and I see that I have 67 questions left.
Well, that tells me I'm behind pace.
I should be on a pace of about one question per minute
and I'm not.
I'm going to have to do 67 question in 60 minutes.
That's going to encourage me to speed up a little bit
and I might check again in another 15 minutes
to see if I'm indeed catching up.
And finally, I want you to begin with confidence.
The assumption is that you've gone through this course,
you got your hands-on experience,
you've evaluated yourself against the exam topics,
you are ready to rock this exam.
So instead of doubting yourself, I like to do
sort of a mantra when going into the exam center.
This is a technique I learned from Anthony Robbins.
On my way to the testing center
or maybe I'm going to a job interview.
I did this back in the day.
I would, in my car, shout out loud over and over,
I overwhelm my challenges with preparation.
You just say this over and over and you get chills.
It helps you show up as your best self.
Again, the assumption is you've done the work.
You've done the heavy lifting of preparing for the exam,
but by doing this mantra, for me, anyway,
it helps me show up more confidently.
It helps me do better on the exam.
And that's a look at some of my tips
for what to do on exam day.