Raging
Competition/FONT>
Competition has made its clout felt in every field including education. From a toddler to a college goer, every individual is ought to encounter it. And running into competition is not a cake walk as it also includes
pressure. It becomes grueling for even a sharp-witted student to excel well under intense pressure. This is also proved in a study by some of the
psychologists in New York. A new study of math testing conducted by psychologists reported that intense exam pressure is likely to hamper the performance of intellect
students than mediocre ones.
The main asset of an intellect is the memory; short
term or working memory (the ability to keep numbers and thoughts in a particular pattern and at the same time, focusing on the problem). The study suggests that in a rush to please others, students force themselves under pressure and drop their
intellectual asset.
Even though an
intellect can be gauged well with a test, the study suggests that a test cannot produce the desired result from an intellect when the student is put on with an extra performance load. The test can impede his performance by dropping his intellectual asset.
The conventional definition of short term memory has been redefined by psychologists from a shell which could hold several numbers and characters depending on the size, to a mental food processor that shapes the ingredients while focusing on the problem.
Strong analytical skills and creative thinking (short term memory) support high intellectual aptitude and students with such aptitude cannot exceed well under extreme pressure.
But students with low aptitude skills are less affected by pressure as they are probably relying on less taxing techniques to handle problems, say psychologists.
One of the most effective ways to safeguard intellectual skills from the thrust of pressure and competition is to make the problem-solving approach in a more automatic manner. Once a skill has been trained up to a point, the differences in working memory become less important, and one does not turn out to be vulnerable.
This abstract was checked by WhiteSmoke Solution. Learn more .
Published: July 27, 2006
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