Why Some Students Can Do Well in Tests

Before you read: some questions to help you think about the topic and the words you might need.

Do you have any suggestions for how to do well in a test?

Do you think some people are naturally better at tests? Why?

Why can some students’ ace tests and others cannot?

Researchers at the University of Missouri have been studying a chemical in our brains called Dopamine.

Researchers have found that the success of some students can be because of how fast dopamine is cleared from their brain.

Dopamine is a chemical that takes messages that help to transmit signals between nerve cells of the brain.  The chemical has many uses that have important jobs in behavior and mind processing, attention, working memory and learning. Our brains work best when there’s not too much or too little dopamine.

That’s where what’s known as the COMT gene comes into play - and it has two varieties. The fast variety removes dopamine quickly and the slow one removes the chemical slowly.

People were studied in two situations, one study under normal situations, the other under stressful ones.  It was discovered that in normal situations, people with the slow-acting COMT gene did excellently when doing mental tasks.   Under those situations, people with the fast-acting gene didn’t do as well.

The result was the opposite when people were given a lot of stress.  That’s because dopamine overloads the brains of people with the slow-acting gene  – hampering their ability.  You see, dopamine increases in stressful situations.  So in this situation, the fast-acting gene keeps the brain’s dopamine at normal levels.

There’s no need to worry though, about 50 percent of all people inherit one of each gene variety from their parents.  So that means most people have medium acting enzymes. The other half is divided between fast and slow acting genes.

Researchers also found that past experiences leveled the playing field.  The more practice someone had at doing some job or task, the less possibility that they would melt under pressure.

We know that practice makes perfect, but there are some other things we can do to help reduce stress.

1.  Eat healthy.  Meals should have fruits and vegetables.

2.  Exercise regularly.

3.  Do things you enjoy often like, hobbies, sports and reading.

4.  Make sure you get enough sleep.

5.  Learn relaxation techniques like, meditation and deep breathing.

Research shows that being active in school activities like, chess, spelling bees competitions or science fairs gives students an opportunity to do well.  Some of these situations might be very stressful, but there’s a chance they could payoff in the end.  

Try to guess the meaning of the words in bold and match them with their closest meaning from the choices in the right. Some of the answers are very close and have similar meaning.

 The answers are below the table.