I actually sat down to study last night, when I gave up on trying to sleep. The quantitative section wasn't as bad as I remember it being... maybe I just got more comfortable with it. I wish I could be in the "I'm just casually trying out these problems" frame of mind while doing the actual test too. My only real major problem with these sort of tests is that there's too much pressure. Pressure to perform (in Math related endeavours) really debilitates me.
I read a psych study once about how this fear of performing poorly in Math is quite common in girls, and this tendency to be afraid leads to actual poor performance because of anxiety during the test.
You'd think knowing this sort of thing would help, but unfortunately the study didn't talk about how girls with math-anxiety should battle it. Bummer.
On that note, I'm considering doing an Ed.D (Doctor of Education) instead of a PhD. If I did, one of my research papers would definitely involve looking into the relationship between family members' verbalized expectations of a child "मेरा बेटा engineer बनेगा" type nonsense and children's confidence in particular subjects. I'm more interested in the confidence, and the kid's own assessment of whether he/she is good at a certain thing, rather than the performance itself.
I've definitely known a lot of parents to have ruined their kids, and left them with all kinds of complexes that extend well into adulthood. Something as simple as talking about your children in a certain way, at a certain age, when the child can hear you, can really affect the development of long lasting anxiety related to particular domains. That brings us back to the loop of death: [anxiety --> bad performance --> anxiety] and so on.
My new career goal is to make sure that people need licenses to raise kids. It's WAY harder than driving.
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