Beyond the Content: Mindfulness as a Test Prep Advantage

by Logan Thompson

Learn how to tackle the hardest parts of taking a test—stress, anxiety, self-doubt—with Beyond the Content . In this quick read, you'll learn how mindfulness can help you conquer the voices in your head, study better, and approach the test with confidence.

Most test prep books, textbooks, and classes miss the mark by only focusing on strategy and content. This essential guide tackles the other half of test mindfulness and your mental performance. Mindfulness is widely embraced in the business and athletic communities as a valuable technique to optimize performance. Author Logan Thompson, an expert in both test prep and mindfulness, says that it's about time the test prep community embraces it as well.

In the book, Thompson explains, "The other half of test prep is the world of fleeting thoughts and emotions, always flickering, always murmuring inside your head, usually going unnoticed and unremarked upon. They shape our perceptions and perspectives. And, they dictate our performance on tests. The other half of test prep is happening all the time, whether we like it or not. Your mental and emotional state, your surfacing memories, your underlying beliefs are always there. The good news is that, by acknowledging the other half of test prep, exploring it, and working with it, you can gain access to your full potential."

126 pages, Paperback

Published August 6, 2019

Reviews

[Neil H · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book. For all my life, I have struggled with sefl esteem and have the quick temper gotten the better of me in innumerable occasions. But this book whilst supporting a mindset for dealing with test anxieties provides many nuggets of easy to follow self care. From mindfulness techniques to labelling your mental and physical distractions and discomforts and gently acknowledging their existence. We can choose to nuture a healing ground for ourselves. This is a gem.

[Tom Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. I've had it on my shelf for ages. No idea why I didn't finish it sooner.

Standardized tests evoke such strong emotional responses. It seems like they determine our futures - the way our peers see us, the schools we get into, the jobs we get, the peers we meet and the friendships and relationships we develop. How overwhelming to attribute all of that to a couple hours of dense readings and math puzzles?

In the current cultural moment, society seems to have deemed standardized tests to be unnecessary barriers that ought to be stripped away. Time will tell whether that helps out world become more equitable. In the meantime, how nice to have a book that shows us how to use the testing experience as a tool for reflection and growth of self-awareness. The experience of test prep doesn't have to be awful. It can be an impetus for change.

My favorite line: "There's a difference between something being important and something being serious." It reminds me of a moment in Infinite Jest, when the narrator describes tennis psychology and the secret to becoming great at the sport: learn how to care a lot and also not care at all in the exact same moment.

Great book. Will definitely recommend to my students.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

After many years of successful test prep that helped my students land at dream colleges across the country, I’d still get a student every once in a while who seemed to have the content and strategies on lock, yet once the test would roll around, they wouldn’t make the same gains they did in practice. This book unlocked a key level in test prep for those students in particular, but it will now be a regular tenet in my test prep practice.

[Parth Sarthi · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are interested to know more than just content and strategies of solving problem in your test prep journey, this book will be a great resource.