Test Taking Strategy: Trust your intuition!

Pass the insurance licensing exam or pass any exam for that matter, here is a continuation of “test taking strategies.”

Always stick with your first response. Trust your intuition!

I am intrigued when students change their answers.  When teaching, I often review and test for understanding.  I ask a question.  I hear the correct answer moving through their voice, a slight hesitation, then finally the wrong answer lands in a form of a question.  You know that thing that people do when they answer a question and their voice goes up at the end.  Something happens mid way through responding. Especially with the easy questions.  There is a moment of pause just as the correct answer, first response is spoken, all of a sudden the wrong answer is said.  (This shows up in taking a written or computer exam by marking an answer and then changing the marked answer.)

I, pause, ask for clarification – by asking, “What was your first answer?” (pause) Did you start thinking?

The first guideline in “Test Taking Strategies” is: Be Prepared!

When prepared, learning moves from conscious learning to unconscious learning.  The intuition or gut feeling of your first response is usually and often times the right answer.  More often right than wrong.  It becomes mindless when you truly learn the information.  Unconscious learning triggers the right answer.  Once you start thinking, especially the “recovering analytical”, all the answers sound and look right.  The more you review the more you retain and the exam becomes easy.

Remember, you know the answer before you consciously know the answer; follow your intuition.  When you start thinking too much about the answers, the second-guessing begins.   As soon as you see the answer, go for it!  Remind yourself: “I trust my intuition!”

Life Strategy

“Trust your intuition!” How does this show up in “Life”?

It is that voice, that gut feeling, the “knowing” of something.  Whatever that something is like action, thought, feeling, vision, etc.  This knowing from feeling, voice, or vision comes from your unconscious that often guides you in  way that you may not know consciously.  I am sure it has revealed itself to you and you did not pay attention.

For example, I had a feeling to share something with my sister.  I thought about it and thought more about it, then I thought it is not my place to tell her.  It is something between her and my dad.  This is a very sensitive matter and it is none of my business.  However, this feeling showed itself more than once.  I attempted to bring it up to my sister and her response was not so inviting to follow through.  So I thought about it more and decided not to act on it.  Now I am in discord with my sister.  I recognize that when I start thinking and rationalizing rather than trust myself the results are not always “desired results”.  My strategy in this area is to notice when I start thinking too much.  I am not saying to be impulsive.  Although I am not against being impulsive if it is in the spirit of fun and happiness.  I am saying that there are times to listen to that voice, feeling or knowing; take action and trust yourself.  This is a strategy and one of many to choose from.  Choose a strategy that empowers you.  Trusting yourself and your intuition comes from within.  With practice it gets easier to trust that intuition.

Best wishes always.