How To Handle Your Stress When Exam Is Approaching?

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How to handle exam stress

Announcement: Cambridge IGCSE, O Level and AS & A Level June 2025 past papers are now available.

We have received enormous amount of stress rescue requests from candidates. Especially when the exam is approaching.

We do hope parents and educators are paying kind attention to this post.

All of the candidates are pouring their hearts out to us, crying for help, because there is really no one listening to them or helping them.

Here are some of their cry out:

  • Fear of failing.
  • Not being able to recall stuff I just studied,
  • Not enough time!!!
  • I’m so scared right now! Do you think there’s any chance I might improve in time for my examinations?
  • Pressure from teachers and parents.
  • Feeling like I’m not worth anything or good enough.
  • I feel myself getting everything and understanding it but if I try to solve anything, it just doesn’t happen and it’s extremely frustrating.
  • My teachers do not seem passionate with teaching, they are interested in being given more money incentives on top of their salaries, they want money, my school is poor to pay more money.
  • I am scared from the examinations.

… and many many more.

Therefore, in this article, we will discuss how to “handle” your stress. Hope this would help you not only in your exam, you probably will carry this throughout your life. 🙂


Can We “Handle” Stress?

Contrary to popular belief, we CAN NOT “handle” stress.

Stress does not exist. It is NOT a thing that you can hold nor eat 😉

Stress is a feeling resulting from your thought.

From your ‘negative’ thought to be precise.

When your mind constantly thinking on negative thoughts, for example: you are scared to fail, or not getting an A*, or not good enough comparing to your older brothers or sisters, etc…; you create a bad feeling inside your body from all the negative thoughts.

The bad feeling that you feel, is what you call ‘stress’.

The more you want to “handle” your stress, the more you think there is something wrong about you. Then, you put more pressure and create more unwanted negative thoughts about yourself.

Why would you do that then?

Shall we agree from now on you don’t try to “handle” your stress anymore?

We only take “YES” as the answer 😉

So what should you do then? Keep reading…

1. Admit You Have Negative Thought(s)

There is really no big deal to admit we have negative thoughts. Everyone has them.

Just the courage to admit we have them, we have already eliminated most of the bad feelings.

Aren’t you feel lighter now?

Know that you can’t fight darkness with darkness. You can only fight darkness with light. By admitting the existence of negativity, you have inserted the light of positivity.

That is the most important starting point, and it is essential for you to continue to the next step.

2. Change Your Thoughts

Now that you know stress is the bad feelings you created from all your negative thoughts.

All you need to do now is – Change Your Thoughts.

Here are some steps for you to start doing that:

  • Start by imagining the positive outcomes that you want to see or to have. For example: imagine you score A* in Maths, then feel the happiness feeling when you see your result slip.
    As Albert Einstein said: “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
  • Make a list of things that you are afraid or frustrated of. Next, write the positive opposite of it. For example: I am scared of exams. The positive opposite you could write: I handle exam with ease / I write smoothly in the exam / I am entering the exam hall with full energy and I can’t wait to put everything I know down on the paper to show that I deserved an A* 🙂
  • Know that examination is just a method used to see if you have understood the theory thoroughly and know how to present it out.
  • Examination is also a way to let you find out what is your best talent. You will notice a trend that you tend to do well in certain subjects, but not the others. So, there is really no big deal if you can’t do well in Physics but trump in Arts. Because that is your best talent that you are meant to be the best in order to contribute to mankind in the future.

When you are making your list, you will notice that you have a shift in your feeling.

You will feel must lighter, your mind is clearer, you have so much energy that you want to jump into the exam hall right now, and most importantly, you will notice a big smile on your face because now you are a much happier person!

The final step is, you must train yourself to keep this happy feeling and not let yourself slide backwards again to the negative thoughts.

Step 3 will show you exactly how to do that.

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3. Get Good Results By Keeping The Positive Thoughts

The best way to keep your mind on positive thoughts is gratitude.

If you make a search, you will discover many great minds had always said the same thing about gratitude, and what kind of miracle it would bring to you.

Here are some of them:

“When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.” ~ Tony Robbins

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ~ Albert Einstein

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events.” ~ Melodie Beatty

Make gratitude your daily dose in your daily life.

You could be grateful for the chance to study, the ability to read and write, to be able to attend your exam at your comfort, to have a comfortable bed to sleep on each night, the luxury of clean running water and electricity, the money that have been given to you so you could continue your education, the fresh air, all your favourite food that is always available at your reach, etc etc etc …

The list is so vast that we simply couldn’t put everything here. But you get the idea of where to start 🙂

Pay attention to how you feel. If you are not feeling good, that means your mind is currently broadcasting negative thoughts.

Immediately find anything you could be grateful for to shift to positive thought.

***

Last but not least, please know that you are a worthy human being. Everyone is.

We are all here to do something important. We are all equipped with a special talent that only we have, no one else.

And we are meant to find out what we are good at, so we could contribute this talent to mankind. When you are contributing your best talent for the benefit of mankind, you will be rewarded handsomely (a.k.a earning a lot of money). 🙂

So now, go out there and score A*!

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325 responses

  1. I’m not usually the type of person who takes a lot of stress. but my parents and brother nag at me all the time. my brother got all As and they expect the same from me. I am not afraid of exams or failing but of disappointing the people i love. please give me some advice on how to remove these thoughts bcoz they get in my way when I’m trying to study.

    1. Hi Maria,
      May we suggest you share this article with your parents and your brother? 🙂

      Tell them you are really doing your very best, and they would understand from then on.

  2. I’m still so tensed about my examinations in March. I’m naturally a very tensed person and have the tendency to put an immense amount of pressure on me. I do try my best to remain calm and it works sometimes, but then there are my parents. My mom won’t stop nagging me to study and my dad too. I try explaining to them but they don’t seem to understand. I usually end up crying due to the pressure and stress. I’ve made plans on which pastpapers to do on which day and which chapters to read when but I usually end up not being able to complete one or two tasks out of five in a day. I study for approximately six hours a day inclusive of tuitions. I still haven’t been able to achieve good grades in subjects like Math, Business Studies and ICT. Also, new syllabus has been introduced for ICT just 5 months before our boards which is taking a lot of time to learn up. I’m really scared and tensed about the fact that I won’t be able to achieve good enough grades even though I’m trying my best. It’s just so frustrating. 🙁

    1. Hi Meher,
      Just take a look at your message, and count how many times you wrote the word “tense” 🙂

      Your mind is being wired to “tense”, because you THINK “tense” all day long. Haven’t you read the article above? And finally know what “tense” really is? 🙂

      Please read again 😉

  3. Dear igcse team, whenever I am studying , I always get confused easily. I don’t know why this happens. This has nothing to do with my stress because I am already motivated. Could you please help me on how to stop getting confused easily.

    1. Hi Mazin,
      When you are confused, that means you do not understand the fundamental theory and you do not know how to apply them into the questions. You must go back to learn the theory, then learn how to apply into the questions.

  4. Thanks for the tips.All of the advices are helpful to me ,the subject which frighten me most is English but i strongly believe that i can overcome this subject. i am from Myanmar.My friends also afraid instead of maths and science.Most students get lower result only in English .finally ,by the help of your team ,the results can be change in to better grades.

  5. Dear IGCSE TEAM ,
    Can you please suggest me how to study for my coordinated science and make A* follow me.

    1. Just follow through your reference books, and do lots of practices. Don’t forget the past papers, they are very important.

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