Tip 9: Warm Up

You know from you own experience that it is good to warm up before a performance. If you’re a musician, you warm up your instrument by doing scales. If you’re a runner, you warm up your muscles by do stretches. When bowling, you take a couple of “practice balls.” When playing golf or tennis, you take some practice swings.

Warming up works well for behaviors. In fact, it works well for a wide variety of tasks. The technical name for this is priming. It is such a normal part of our lives, we don’t realize we’re doing it. Priming is both unintentional & automatic.

Essentially, priming shows that prior experience improves performance. It doesn’t have to experience with the exact task at hand. Your experience at solving math problems can help you solve new math problems, even if they are only somewhat similar. But experience does help.

Warming up also works well for recalling facts too. Test designers often include a couple of example or practice items to get you started. When I write a classroom exam, I start with some easy items to help students “get in the groove.” If others don’t do it for you, do it yourself. Next time you are getting ready to take a test, prime yourself the day of the test with a couple of questions similar to those you expect to see. Think of it as getting in the mood.