Reducing Test Anxiety

Test anxiety arises when a student excessively worries about doing badly in a test. This can become a major hindrance (造成妨碍的事物) to test performance and cause extreme nervousness and memory problems among other symptoms. 【小题1】

Think positively. Scientific research has shown that our expectations can affect our performance. 【小题2】However, if you expect that you’ll do poorly, studying may not be enough to help you perform well. Therefore, it is a wise choice to think positively.

【小题3】 Fear releases adrenaline (肾上腺素) , preparing the body to deal with danger. Your heart rate and breathing speed up and you may feel shaky, sweaty, or dizzy. Anything you can do to reduce these physical reactions will help you think more clearly and feel more confident.

Eat before the test. Don’t skip breakfast to study. 【小题4】 Choose protein-filled snacks and avoid sugar, which can give you quick energy that may run out in the middle of the test. Eat something even if you feel sick—try crackers or toast to settle your stomach. Avoid caffeine and energy drinks, which can increase anxiety.

Get a good night’s sleep before the test. Studies have shown that you will do well in the test if you get enough sleep. 【小题5】 If the test is later in the day or the evening, or if you just couldn’t get a full night’s sleep, take a nap. Research has shown that a short nap—less than an hour—can improve alertness, memory, creativity,  productivity, and moods, and can decrease stress.

   It can be difficult to meet new people and make friends，especially when you move to a new city or find yourself out of your comfort zone．How will you deal with the situation?【小题1】 There are several ways that you can meet people that you might not have considered in the past．

★【小题2】You probably have several acquaintances that you see on a daily basis or a weekly basis．If you get along well with certain people，you can see if this acquaintance would like to go out and do something socially with you．If you have common interests，you might suggest that the two of you do something together that involves your interest．

★ Make an effort to accept invitations．Sometimes people that you know may be having a barbecue or other types of social gathering．Try to ensure that you are able to attend and then show up at the appointed time．【小题3】If you meet people that you click with，you can make a plan to see them again in the future or you can invite your friends to your own event and ask them to extend the invitation to the friends that were at their gathering too．

★Go out，even when you don’t feel like it．It turns out that when people invite someone to join them for dinner or a movie or something else，they really want to hang out with you．【小题4】

【小题5】 But once you have used the same methods a few times you will know exactly what works and what does not．Don’t give up，everyone is different and it just takes time to get to know people．

   Cowboys, policemen, princesses and superheroes are all characters kids choose to be on any given day. Putting on a play can be a fun activity that lets them act out their favorite characters as well as use their artistic ability to create the stage.

Best of all, they will be able to use their favorite line “ look at me” as the audience sits down to enjoy the production.

Help your kids decide on a play they would like to act out. Use the Internet or the library to find scripts (剧本) for older reading kids. For younger kids, they can act out a favorite story or a fairy tale. Of course, you could always help them write their own scripts.

Decide how many characters are needed. Invite neighbors and friends to be in your play or let your kids play more than one character. Make sure you teach them to change the way they look, move and speak so the audience can tell the difference.

Search for costumes and props (道具) supplies. Find clothes from your closet or attic (阁楼) , or go to a garage sale. Help everyone make a mask or put on makeup to represent their characters.

Get creative. Make tickets, invitations, movie posters and props for your kids’ play. You can even decorate a curtain and hang it in front of the stage. Set up chairs for the audience.

Choose your music. Pick something that goes with the theme of the play. Ask someone to play the piano or have the kids make up songs and help them make homemade instruments.

Rehearse the play. The more the play is practiced, the better it will be. Try starting early in the summer and practicing once a week. Set out a snack after rehearsal and make it light-hearted and fun. Then perform the play at the end of the summer vacation.

Invite the audience to sit down and enjoy the play.

   Searching for airfares often seems like a game that passengers are bound to lose.

Prices change from day to day, even minute to minute. Looking through various websites for the best deal can be a big challenge. Even when you do book, there’s no guarantee that you are going to get the best price.

“You just don’t know when to pull the trigger. It’s not like buying anything else I can think of,” said George Hobica, founder of Airfarewatchdog. com.

Harriet Levy paid $ 179 for a recent round-trip flight on American Airlines between New York and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Sitting just one row behind her, Shirley Harrison paid $ 215. A few rows back, Ellis and Dianne Traub paid $ 317 each. There were at least 12 fares on the flight, ranging from $ 169 to $ 360.

“There’s no reason for it,” Harrison said.

Fares can vary significantly in just a few hours. One Delta flight from New York to Los Angeles jumped from $ 755 to $ 1,143 from a Friday to Saturday in late April, and then fell to $ 718 on Sunday.

The flight was one of a dozen the Associated Press（美国联合通讯社）followed over three months for a vacation between July 16 and 22. The number one finding: avoid booking tickets on weekends. It’s the most expensive time to buy.

There’s no way to guarantee the best fare. But before booking, travelers should pay attention to this additional advice:

● Book on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. That’s when airlines most often offer sales.

● Buy in advance, but not too early. The best time is four to six weeks before traveling. In general, prices for any given flight are the highest when tickets are booked eight to ten weeks and two to three weeks in advance.

● Make use of social media. Airlines are giving more benefits like exclusive（专有的）sales to travelers who interact（交流）with them on Twitter and Facebook. Those specials are often gone within hours.

● The so-called discount airlines — JetBlue, Air-Tran, Southwest and Frontier — adjust their fares less frequently than other airlines, so you can feel more confident that the price will stay the same. But their prices aren’t always the lowest. Researching multiple airlines’ fares is the only way to get a good deal.

   Holding on regret is like dragging (拖) the weight of the past with us everywhere we go. It consumes our _________, leaving less available for life in the present _________ we are constantly feeding an old issue. This attachment can _________illness the same way watering a dead plant creates decay (腐烂).We know that _________ new and beautiful can grow in its place if we only prepare the soil and plant the right seeds. We also know that we create our lives from our _________, so focusing on the past may actually recreate a situation in our lives where we are _________ to make the choice again and again. We can choose to move _________right now by applying what we have learned to the present and perhaps even sharing with others, _________ the energy into something that is constructive and creative for ourselves and others.

Forgiveness can heal _________. In meditation (冥想), we can ____________discussing the issue with the self of our past and ____________our forgiveness for the choice. ____________, we can ask for ourselves' forgiveness for keeping them locked in that space of judgment for so long. We may also want to ask for ____________from anyone else who may have been ____________and perhaps offer our forgiveness. By replaying the event in our ____________, we can choose a new ending using all that we now know. Imagine that you have actually gone back into the ____________ and made this change, and then say goodbye to it. ____________your former self with a hug and bring the forgiveness and love back with you to the present. Since we are usually hard on ourselves, it is amazing how ____________ healing it can be to offer ourselves love.

Keeping our minds and our energy fully in the present allows us to fuel our ____________ and emotional well-being today. This action frees our energy to create the dreams we dream for the future. By ____________responsibility and action in the present, we can let go of the past.