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ickydog2006 said:
This is finals week for me and I"ve been really struggling. One thing that helped a lot was replaying an email over and over again in my head. I had emailed one of my teachers after my second test. He had told me I'd probably ace it. I replyed after the test saying I had just finished and he was right, I probably aced it. He emailed a reply which said "I never doubted". It meant so much to me. I constantly doubt myself, but he honestly had never doubted me and my abilities on the test. I don't know if other people believe you do good. But I would suggest you try to focus on other peoples faith in your abilities (not their expectations) instead of your own lack of faith in yourself.

Good luck... to everyone facing tests right now and upcoming.

(((((((((((hugs))))))))

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That's awesome, and sorry to drag it a bit off topic, but there has just been research done here on an intervention type thing conducted with teenagers in predominently low-decile (poorer area) schools who are traditionally lower achievers (they are from a specific cultural group).

With this new 'style' of teaching, the teacher raises expectations of what they should be achieving amongst other things. One of the factors in developing the teaching style that came out is that teachers traditionally expect this demographic to be lower achievers and often fail. The kids themselves said they wanted to be expected to succeed, not given excuses to fail.

Results showed increases in passes in the subgroup of teenages of NCEA Level 1 (they do these exams at 15ish) from 30% to a staggeringly awesome 125% in comparison to achievement in previous years.

Of course, there were other factors involved in changing the style of classroom behaviour by the teachers, but this 'expectation / affirmation / reinforcement of success' appears to be very important.

I feel like that's kinda what your lecturer did? Telling you you'd ace it showed his confidence in you, and there is NOTHING wrong (and a lot right, IMO) in drawing from that kind of positivity ...

Sorry again to ramble a bit.