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Joseph Arroyo

Professor Silva

Health Education

11 February 2020

Case Study Analysis

The general population does not really fully understand the pressures of students in

academia. Even after all of the success, nobody really sees the struggles of hard work especially

in higher education. In this case, a student, Katya, faces adversities while attending college.

Katya is known to have a good grade point average of 3.0 of the 4.0 scale, nonetheless, this does

not mean that she easily achieved this. While Katya studies for all her exams, one particular

Chemistry exam has her feeling very anxious. This anxiety was so severe that it led to a panic

attack days before her exam. In addition, the pressure of maintaining her scholarship does not

help her situation at all. The purpose of this analysis is to provide Katya with a few efficient

ways to study for this exam and make sure she is able to keep her scholarship at college.

As a college student myself, I too have experienced what Katya is going through first-

hand. Higher education is not easy at all, at least for me, a first-generation college student. As a

matter of fact, I still am still learning how to be a student every day. Even though every student

has a different story, what we have in common is struggle and perseverance. In my personal

experience, I too suffer from test anxiety, especially in courses like science and mathematics. It

looks me some time to learn how to study and become confident in myself with many exams I

have took over the years. When I first started college, it was difficult for me to adapt to college-

level course work. Everything from taking good and efficient notes all the way to taking exams

and going to my professor’s office hours to better understand the material. The truth is, there is
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no perfect or easy way to go through college, you, the student has to figure out what works best

for you in order to succeed and achieve all of your goals. This is what I would tell myself, in

addition to the support from my family. There were a lot of ways I tried to succeed in school, and

I am glad to say that I found what is efficient for me to learn and achieve multiple college

courses.

There are many ways to go about the situation Katya is currently facing. The first step to

is create a game plan, per se, to ace her Chemistry exam so she will not feel anxious about it

anymore. Specifically, Katya should organize steps to feel confident for the exam, this can be

done by writing down all the ways she will study for this exam and look to see if these are

efficient ways to study. Moreover, Katya’s next step is to ask her professor what the exam will

consist of so she can better study for what exactly will be present on the exam. Katya could also

ask her peers what they are using as a study guide and maybe collaborate amongst them to

further prepare herself, along with her peers for the exam. In KoUn Eum and Kenneth Rice’s,

Test Anxiety, Perfectionism, Goal Orientation, and Academic Performance, states, “Goal

orientation refers to “different ways of approaching, engaging in, and responding to achievement

situations” (Ames, 1992, p. 261). In other words, in Katya’s case this means that there are many

different ways to approach the problem at hand that she faces about her exam. One thing that

works for me when I have an exam coming up is using a study method. For example, once I

create a study guide for the material that I will be tested on, I study it for about 30 minutes to 40

minutes, after this I practice a few problems from my textbook or a few that my professor

provided. After I have completed this for an hour or a little over an hour, I take a half hour break

to keep my mind from cramming which is the worst way one can study for an exam. I highly
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recommend this for Katya since it is an efficient way to study for an exam, especially one in the

subject of Chemistry.

Finally, in conclusion, there are many ways for Katya to prepare for her upcoming exam.

The first step Katya needs to take is to simply take the first step so she can focus on how to

achieve the exam she feels anxious for. I provide a little bit of my personal experience with the

same situation and I hope it helps Katya like it helped me. I was about to learn how to study and

as of now, I feel more way more confident since when I first started college.
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Works Cited

Eum, K., & Rice, K. (2011). Test anxiety, perfectionism, goal orientation, and academic

performance. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 24(2), 167–178. https://doi-

org.ezp.pasadena.edu/10.1080/10615806.2010.488723