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If exam season is on your horizon, you may be wondering how to self-motivate for your study sessions—these test-taking motivation tips are sure to help!

The Importance of Self-Motivation

As described in a study comparing educational motivation between high schoolers and undergraduate students, “Meaningful learning is characterized by a student’s emotional involvement,” (Davidovitch & Dorot, 2023). The more you genuinely feel like you want to excel, the more effectively you’ll learn. 

Fostering that feeling is difficult for many students, especially when they aren’t sure what they want to study in college or pursue as a career, but that emotional connection to academic success can be crucial in developing a positive, productive attitude towards schoolwork and studying. This also applies to exams: test motivation plays a role in improving test results (Penk et al., 2014). The more you’re motivated to do well on a test, the more you’re motivated to study. The more you study, the better you’ll perform. 

Barriers to Test-Taking Motivation for Students

Are you wondering, “Why is it hard to motivate myself?” If you understand the importance of your upcoming exam but you’re still stagnant in your studying, you’re not alone. When it comes time to start studying for a test date that’s months in the future, your other priorities can seem more urgent, or it can be hard to grasp the gravity of test prep. In fact, there are many obstacles that make it hard for students to find test-taking motivation:

1. Burnout & Lack of Time

It can feel impossible to start studying if you can’t find the time for test prep, or if you feel overwhelmed with adding it to your existing obligations. 

Homework (especially if you’re in advanced courses), extracurriculars, responsibilities at home, and any part time work can fill up your weekly schedule. That’s not including your hobbies and time spent with friends & family, which can be vital to your mental health, happiness, and personal goals. Sacrificing any one of these for time to test prep can feel like a steep cost. If this is what’s making it hard to find test-taking motivation, the solution may lie in reorganizing your schedule and/or improving your time management.

2. Boredom & Lack of Focus

Obviously, studying for a test can be boring. As a high school student, you should be used to making yourself do boring things, like the homework for your least favorite classes. Still, the long-term nature of test prep can make it even harder to sit down and study when you have other immediate concerns. Further, if you’re someone who struggles focusing on your everyday work, focusing on standardized test prep is probably especially challenging.

If you’re wondering how to self-motivate for test prep and finding it difficult to focus, try making your prep more fun and using incentives to motivate yourself. (Read on for more!)

3. Fear of Failure or Self-Limiting Beliefs

Fear of failure is one of the strongest deterrents to any kind of motivation, and that’s especially true for test taking motivation. If you’re severely worried about your test performance, that testing anxiety can cause a response of avoidance or procrastination of preparing for the exam. Similarly, if you don’t believe in your ability to do well on the exam, you may feel like studying is a waste of time.

Both of these experiences come from the same issue: misjudging how much of an impact studying can have on test results. If you resonate with this concern, think through the logic behind studying: filling your knowledge gaps and improving your skills will naturally improve your ability to face those topics on the real test. Once you start the process of practice testing, studying, and retesting, you’ll see how test prep yields real results.

4. Absence of Clear Goals

If you don’t know what you’re working towards, studying can feel directionless. Without specific goals related to your test performance, students often find test-prep an overwhelming experience. To find a clear goal for your test performance, consider what score you want, why you need to score well, and how you can get there. Read on for more information on study plans and goal-setting.

Types of Motivation

Before we get into specifics on how to self-motivate, let’s review the two main types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic.

  • Intrinsic motivation is a person’s innate desire and propensity to engage in actions that they genuinely enjoy. In other words, doing the activity in question is its own reward.
  • Extrinsic motivation arises from external incentives and consequences. Instead of engaging in an activity because of a natural propensity, extrinsic motivation is based on some set of consequences separate from the activity.

Because intrinsic motivation comes from the genuine feeling of wanting to succeed, it is the most desirable form of test-taking motivation to develop; however, extrinsic motivation can be easier to create and it can show quicker results. That’s why the best way to come out of a motivational block is to use a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators (Pranitasari & Noersanti, 2017).

How to Self-Motivate for Test Prep

The most important thing students can do to foster test-taking motivation is to set measurable and attainable goals, but there are many other strategies you can implement to convert a general aspiration of test success into the motivation you need to sit down and start studying.

Read on for self-motivation tips for students to break through whatever’s blocking your motivation and get test-prepping!

1. Create Reasonable Long-Term Goals

Outline reasonable long-term goals for which you are willing to work hard in order to achieve. If you’re test-prepping, the long-term goal is probably your goal score. But, think even longer-term: good standardized test scores result in greater educational opportunities—so, where do you want your education to take you? And even further: what kind of life and career do you want with that education?

Take a Junior in high school who wants to be an architect. The best architecture firms are more likely to hire from top architecture undergraduate programs—what are those programs, which ones would that student be interested in attending, and how can they optimize their chances of getting in? If the university’s average accepted SAT score is a 1450, they’ll want their test score goal to be around or above that figure. 

This is your time to daydream. Get excited about your long-term goals, and let that energy fuel your test prep. Even if your dream job changes from what you want now, getting a great test score will open many educational opportunities!

What if You Aren’t Sure What You Want?

Many students don’t know what career they want, or even what university they want to attend. If that’s the case for you, definitely take some time to explore possible career options based on your strengths and wishes—but you don’t have to wait until you have a concrete answer to set goals.

It’s okay if you don’t know all the answers, but use what you do know to set long-term motivational goals for your test prep. Then, work backwards to define what big steps you need to complete in order to get there. 

If you’re taking the ACT or SAT: what characteristics are you looking for in a college? Do you want to attend a top-ranking school in the country, or one in your state? Do some research on their average accepted test scores to determine your goal score, and think about the benefits of those schools as you study.

If you’re an ISEE-taker, on the other hand, consider the great things about the schools you’re applying to. Maybe they have excellent robotics clubs, or they offer a language you’re interested in learning. Think about how fun those programs would be, and how they’ll open opportunities in your adult life.

2. Set Measurable Short-Term Goals

Long-term goals are important, but they can seem vague and distant. That’s why it is important to set short-term goals for your test-taking motivation, too! 

Set short-term goals that are both reasonable and measurable. These goals must have concrete guidelines for measuring success. For instance, great short-term goals to start with might be to spend at least one hour on math test prep once a week, and to read a chapter a night from a book that can improve your reading skills in time for a test. These are much better than the vague idea of “scoring well on the ACT”, since you’ve outlined strict requirements for fulfilling that longer term goal.

If you have a specific goal test score in mind, you can also set medium-term goals to help you reach that score. After taking a benchmark exam at the start of your test prep, you’ll see where your current testing capabilities lie and how much you need to improve. Measure your progress towards that score using intermittent practice tests. Let’s say you scored 1150 on your PSAT and are aiming for a 1400 on the real thing. Aim for an 1250 for your first practice test—if you meet or surpass it, you’re on track. If you score lower than that, you may have to ramp up your studying.

3. Create a Test-Prep Schedule

Using your short- and long-term goals, create a test prep plan for your exam to see how you can implement your studying. If the blockage to your test taking motivation was figuring out how to fit test prep in your schedule, this is a great way to break through that obstacle and see how reasonable it can be to fit into your existing obligations.

Determine what your weekly or monthly schedule looks like and where gaps exist that you can fill with test prep. Look into our guides on creating test prep study timelines for help:

4. Establish an Incentive/Disincentive System

Like we mentioned above, using a combination of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators can be a game-changing approach to your test-taking motivation. Creating a system of incentives and disincentives is a great way to implement extrinsic motivators into your test prep.

Methods of Extrinsic Motivation: Reinforcers and Punishers

First, a note on extrinsic motivation: the two methods of extrinsic motivation are reinforcers, which are events that increase the likelihood of a behavior, and punishers, which are events that reduce the likelihood of a behavior. While both reinforcers and punishers can be useful, punishers are generally less effective in the long run, so they should be used sparingly.

Establish an incentive/disincentive system for yourself by which you know you can abide. Reward yourself when you meet short-term goals. This might mean that after you finish that hour of math homework, you take a thirty-minute break to watch your favorite TV show. 

Sometimes, you may choose instead to take a privilege away from yourself if you do not meet your short-term goals. For example, maybe you will choose not to eat dessert on an evening when you neglected to do the test prep you had planned to complete. By establishing consequences for your actions, you will be more likely to meet your goals. Collaborating with your parents and family members to implement these is a great way to implement them effectively!

Still, extrinsic motivators shouldn’t be the end-all-be-all of your test prep motivation strategies. Studies show that when a student is intrinsically motivated, adding extrinsic motivation only serves to undermine the intrinsic motivation (Liu et al., 2019). Different studies have shown that extrinsic motivation can even have a negative effect on learning effectiveness (Zaccone & Pedrini, 2019), showing that extrinsic motivators should be given far less focus when cultivating your test-taking motivation.

4. Try to Make Test-Prep Fun!

As you get older, you will have more freedom in choosing your classes. Part of the reason undergraduate college students seem to be more motivated for their schoolwork is that they get to choose their courses (Davidovitch & Dorot, 2023). For now, while you’re required to study certain topics, find ways to have fun!

One way to do this is with gamified test prep practice questions that give a little pop of dopamine for right answers! You can also study topics using YouTube videos, or write sample questions on topics you’re learning that involve your interests. Test prep isn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but it doesn’t have to be super boring.

References:

Davidovitch, Nitza, and Ruth Dorot. “The effect of motivation for learning among high school students and undergraduate students—a comparative study.” International Education Studies, vol. 16, no. 2, 26 Mar. 2023, p. 117, https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v16n2p117.

Liu, Yuan, et al. “Multiplicative effect of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on academic performance: A longitudinal study of Chinese students.” Journal of Personality, vol. 88, no. 3, 16 Sept. 2019, pp. 584–595, https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12512.

Penk, Christiane, et al. “The role of test-taking motivation for students’ performance in low-stakes assessments: An investigation of school-track-specific differences.” Large-Scale Assessments in Education, vol. 2, no. 1, 19 Aug. 2014, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40536-014-0005-4.

Pranitasari, Diah, and Lina Noersanti. “Intrinsic and Extrinsic Factors to Affect Students Learning Motivation (Case Study on The Firsth Degree Students in STIE Indonesia).” International Journal of Applied Business and Economic Research, vol. 15, no. 25, 2017.

Zaccone, Maria Cristina, and Matteo Pedrini. “The effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on students learning effectiveness. exploring the moderating role of gender.” International Journal of Educational Management, 16 Aug. 2019, https://doi.org/10.1108/ijem-03-2019-0099.

Using High-Quality Test Prep Tools for ISEE, ACT, and SAT Prep 

If you were wondering how to self-motivate to study for exams, we hope this article helped you find and create that test-taking motivation! Now that you’re ready to study, Piqosity is here to help with tons of test prep resources.

Piqosity’s uniquely structured user interface can help you strategically manage your study time for maximum improvement. If you feel like you’re hitting your head against the wall wondering something like “Why is my ACT score not improving?” then Piqosity’s tried and true test-taking strategies (like our ACT tips and tricks) are for you! 

Along with our full-length, online ELA and Math courses for grades 5-11, we offer full SAT, ACT, and ISEE test prep courses, each of which includes 12 practice exams, dozens of concept lessons, personalized practice software, and more. Our upcoming digital SAT course includes two digital PSATs, aligned to the newly updated SAT formatting to help you prep ahead of time.

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