Candidates will find that it is worth checking their progress to assure that they have an opportunity to respond to every question. If they know that a question will take too much time, they can pass it and return to it later, if time permits. Final Mental Preparations Olympic and professional athletes often vary their training schedules as a major contest approaches. They often ease up on endurance training, and shift their aim to sharpening their alertness, their effectiveness, and their will to win. In any examination, it is just as important that candidates be alert and effective, with all their wits about them, and with an eager desire to do their best.
Some candidates fail in the first half-hour or so of an examination.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say they defeat themselves in that time. They become pessimistic and discouraged, and think too much about the possibility of their having made a bad start in answering the questions. Other candidates, with the same ability, knowledge, and preparation and making bungles just as bad in parts of the examination as the first type of candidates nevertheless succeed in passing the same examination. As in life itself it is also true of actuarial examinations, the difference between failure and success is often linked to a person s attitude. Confidence and optimism, based on mastery of the subject through hard work and many hours of study, will help a candidate to keep going.