What to Do if You Fail a Test

You might have felt confident when you were walking into the testing room, as well as you might have known your chances to succeed were really miserable. Either way, a test has been failed. Puzzled? Don't know how to cope with a failure and what to do? Let’s talk about it in this article. I am sure that overcoming a failure and getting lessons from it is a process which breaks down into several steps. Here they are.

Damage Control

Before starting any actions you should assess the need for immediate actions required after the failure. For example, it you skipped a test, you should definitely contact your teacher right away to figure out whether it is possible to rewrite it. However, in some situations, it is necessary to wait some time before any actions are taken.

Get Some Distance

Failures usually seem earth-shattering when they first happen. When the sirens are blaring in your brain, chances are very high that they will not let you do much of anything useful right away. That is why you should better take some time and cool off a little bit. Take a walk, sleep it off, watch your favorite TV series or do anything else just to provide your brain with some time to let the emotions subside. As soon as it happens, you can use your logic and rationality to start coping with the problem.

Identify the Cause of the Failure

Before you start trying again, make sure to identify the causes of your failure. Take some time and think well what went wrong. Maybe, you were taking too many classes during the semester or some classes were too complicated. Maybe, you were not motivated enough to take into account your studies or you did not use the most effective study techniques. Maybe, there was something in your personal life happening which distracted you from the studies. There can be multiple reasons and you should clarify which one caused your failure.

As soon as you have identified the reason of failure, it is time to try again.

Develop a Good Plan and Retry

Think about the best way to retry in a smarter way going forward. For example, if you realized that you weren't motivated enough to study, how can you motivate yourself better? Some of ways are setting up commitment devices, getting an accountability partner or studying in the library at a set time every week instead of studying in your dorm room.
Create a good plan, do your work, and try one more time.

The truth is that many people simply let the life “happen” to them. They just let their past failures dictate the course of their futures. Do not be such a person! There are very few things which can prevent you from adapting and retrying. Never give up and every failure, which will happen to you, will just make you smarter, more experienced and resilient in the future.