CAE - WRITING TASK - Essay "Methods for schools and universities to help students overcome stress"

According to recent surveys, a wide majority of students recognise that exams are one of the most stressful and tiresome situations they have to face throughout their academic life. Most of them admit feeling under great pressure when preparing and taking an exam. The present essay is aimed at discussing about the different methods schools and universities should put into practice in order to help students to overcome stress during the exam period.

Finding the right time for rest and recreation as well as doing some leisure activities, especially practicing some kind of sport, may be an excellent way of de-stressing. Aside from burning some calories, it can contribute to free your mind from excessive pressure and negative thoughts and as a consequence it will improve your health not only physically but what is more important, mentally.

Support from tutors can be another successful method to cope with this type of situations. Firstly, they should transmit to tell them firmly the firm thought that assessment is a relevant aspect in their learning process and exams are an important technique to evaluate their skills, knowledge and abilities but not the only one, so that their final appraisal will not depend just on it. Secondly, they should teach and train them in a great variety of “study skills” such as underlining, memorising, analysing or summarising with a view to work on their self-assurance.

To my mind both methods are interdependent and complementary nevertheless I firmly believe that getting support from tutors will meaningfully increase students´ likelihood of success in this arduous task since it may play a key role when it comes to passing an exam: it will improve their self-confidence and consequently it will make them feel more calm and relaxed.

Hi there. Pretty cool work! How is your speaking? Ian