How adopting a growth mindset can dramatically improve performance.
It’s like this: every week, you complete one practice test. At first, you might struggle, but you quickly pick up the basics. By week two, you’re getting through the test more quickly, and your score has improved significantly. A month later, however, even after doubling your prep time, your score has plateaued.
As atutor, I often work with students who are very bright, competent, and very ambitious. Yet, it is often the students with the highest GPAs who struggle most with standardized test prep.
In part, this isbecause, since they’re usually starting out with a strong score, they are trying to improve on harder questions. As a result, progress is naturally slower. Additionally, they are trying to achieve as close to a perfect score as possible, so any wrong answer is an issue that needs to be fixed.
But these explanations pale in comparison to what holds most students back.
It may sound counterintuitive, but strong students often struggle most because they are so focused on getting everything right. They forget that learning is a process, and making mistakes is integral to that process.
They put so much pressure on themselves that every study session becomes an anxiety-ridden test, and every missed answer becomes another abject failure, proving that they are not capable of achieving their desired score, getting into their dream school, getting their dream job, etc. They become more anxious and more hyperfocused on getting answers right. As a result, each study session becomes more of a stress fest.
It’s a vicious cycle. But there’s a better way.
A much better way.
One of the most influential resources I have found during my 10+ years of teaching is a short TED Talk by Eduardo Briceno, entitled“How to Get Better at Things You Care About.”
Briceno argues that people alternate between two states when learning something new: theLearning Zoneand thePerformance Zone.
In theLearning Zone, people focus on the material they have not yet mastered, and most importantly, they expect to make mistakes.
In thePerformance Zone, people focus on “executing.” That is, taking everything they’ve learned, correctly applying it, and minimizing their mistakes.
Unfortunately, the performance zone is terrible for learning new things.
More unfortunately, it is also the predominant method of standardized test prep. standardized tests, answering question after question until they’ve mastered a particular question type or logic game type.
When students spend most of their study sessions in the “Performance Zone,” they’re afraid of making mistakes, they’re rushing, they’re second-guessing themselves, and they forget some of the most basic tools and strategies they need to help them get the correct answer quickly.
Staying in the performance zone can turn what could be an hour of effective, deliberate practice into an anxiety-ridden, unproductive experience. The student ends up learning nothing and feeling worse about their ability to succeed on the actual test.
So, how does one get to the “Learning Zone”?
Briceno offers four criteria:
It’s a slow process, but going through this process is the best way to recognize patterns, both in the argument and the answer choices, to learn how to recognize these patterns on future questions.
Most importantly, learning mode is the best way to help students learn from their mistakes. Rather than feeling poorly about getting an answer wrong, students can ask themselves, why did I get this wrong? What step did I miss? What words did I gloss over in the answer choices that could have helped me eliminate a particular answer choice? What did I misread or misunderstand that I need to make a note of for next time?
Practicing in learning mode instead of performance mode will help you increase your speed without diminishing the quality of your work. And it’s not just for standardized tests.
This strategy can apply to any form of study, whether that’s memorizing molecule configurations for chemistry, vocabulary in a foreign language class, or typing out the first draft of an essay. Treat every step of the process as an opportunity to learn rather than a test and see how much farther you get.
Now, the performance zone is an important component of your test prep. That’s why it’s important to take regular practice tests in test-like environments. As Eduardo Briceno notes:
"Both of these zones should be part of our lives, but being clear about when we want to be in each of them, with what goal, focus and expectations, helps us better perform and better improve. The performance zone maximizes our immediate performance, while the learning zone maximizes our growth and our future performance."
So as you study, remember to switch yourself to learning mode consciously. Worry less about the outcome than the process itself. Tell yourself that it is okay to make mistakes. In fact, expect to make mistakes and learn from them.
Ultimately, this is a practice that can help you succeed across many areas of life that you hope to improve. The learning zone can inspire, can break us free from the judgments that stop us from trying new things, from our fears of failure, and our own self-doubt. As Eduardo Briceno says:
"What if, instead of spending our lives doing, doing, doing, performing, performing, performing, we spent more time exploring, asking, listening, experimenting, reflecting, striving and becoming? What if we each always had something we were working to improve? What if we created more low-stakes islands and waters? And what if we got clear, within ourselves and with our teammates, about when we seek to learn and when we seek to perform, so that our efforts can become more consequential, our improvement never-ending and our best even better?"
If you're looking to boost your standardized test scores, or otherwise looking for study skills help, check out Wanderlust Careers for test prep, study skills coaching, and other higher education services.
