With our next Cambridge Exam Preparation course rapidly approaching in the new year, we thought we would bring to you a 5 week blog schedule of our Top 10 Tips to Survive the Cambridge Course.
Tip #1: Don’t be nervous
It might sound simple, but being nervous can have a huge impact on your brain function and performance. It’s biologically encoded into your brain. You see, the frontal lobe of your brain, which is the part that enables you to make rational decisions, has a defence mechanism known as the “Fight or Flight Response” (FOFR). Each time you perceive something as a threat, the frontal lobe stops functioning rationally and your instinct to survive takes over blocking out everything else. It doesn’t matter if the threat is PHYSICAL (e.g. a car rushing towards you, or a lion trying to eat you), or PSYCHOLOGICAL (e.g. a grammar test, writing task, oral presentation). Your frontal lobe cannot distinguish the difference between the two and it shuts down anyway. Simply put, when you are nervous, you can’t physically think logically. If you can’t think, you can’t answer. If you can’t answer you can’t pass. It’s simple biology. There is no point in being nervous about a psychological threat that isn’t even physically harmful to your well-being. You are just being your own worst enemy. Fortunately, the cure is also simple: don’t be nervous.
Tip #2: Don’t be shy
“No man is an island”. This is especially true in the Cambridge course. You must learn how to work with your teacher as well as with other students in order to succeed! The Cambridge speaking test, in particular, requires you to manage a conversation with another student: your speaking partner (unlike IELTS where you just talk about a given topic by yourself). How well you are able to manage your conversation depends on how well you work with your speaking partner. Learning to develop good rapport with your fellow students in the course will help you to improve your skills immensely. Learning is a lot more efficient when it’s done in groups. Let’s face it, language is a communication tool. You need other people in order to communicate, and other people need you. You won’t help anyone, including yourself, by being shy!
Written by Victor Corpuz
(BROWNS FCE teacher)
Next intake: 3 January 2017
Check back next Monday to read about Tip #3: Answer the question and Tip #4 : Difficult is good. Easy is boring.
In the meantime, feel free to watch what Bruna had to say about her Cambridge Exam Preparation exam course at BROWNS Brisbane Campus: