Why do people postpone studying for the Life in the UK test (This is without the doubt the most important test in your life, because becoming a British citizen can change your whole life!) ? Most people have trouble getting started, especially now with the new test being much tougher than the old one, because the new test has a lot more facts to remember!
I had the same trouble of getting started when I had to pass the life in the UK test, so to overcome this, I thought, when else did I have trouble getting started ? Then it came to my mind that when I studied for my university exams , I had trouble getting started. So how did I finally get started and most importantly finished the test in 5 minutes ? I will tell that in a minutes but first lets analyse what delays the all important task of getting started.
Mainly it’s fear, fear of failing, or not passing or being a failure, or even the fear of other people being a lot smarter that you !. All these manifest in different ways, like thinking that this test is more difficult than anything else you’ve ever done in your life, or in lack of motivation.
Maybe you have a different reason (or I call them excuses) ? If so please let me know.
So how do you overcome this obstacle of getting started and PASS the test ?
Personally I prefer my tried and tested, 5 minutes at a time method because it’s so simple and worked every time I got stuck!. So what I do is , when I don’t feel like studying I study for ONLY 5 minutes and no more ! (this is very important, you have to tell yourself that you need to study for only 5 minutes !), then I feel motivated to study more because there is no self imposed pressure to study, I just have to do it for the next 5 minutes and NO more !. This way I end up studying for more than 5 minutes, because at the end of the 5 minutes I feel like I need to study more.
Other things that have helped me to stay on track (another very important aspect of passing any exam, is staying on track and not getting distracted by things like Facebook) are, taking one day at a time and one thing at a time , so I add to this and just take 5 minutes at a time to study.
After all many wise men have said
“The task of man is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand !”
you can apply this to anything in life, so do only a small amount of work at a time and don’t think about the whole test or the project !
all the above will make the test easier in your mind, which is really important because what is stopping you is the self imposed pressure (which results in excuses, delays and procrastination) caused by constantly thinking how big the whole thing is !
Good Luck !
The BEST resources for the test are
- http://lifeuk.info/blog/new-life-in-the-uk-test-chapter-summaries-life-in-the-united-kingdom-a-guide-for-new-residents-3rd-edition-2013/
- http://lifeuk.info/