Preparation

Do not stress out before the test

As you near the actual test date, expect your instructor to get more "nit-picky." Just before tests, instructors tend to get more serious, sterner, and less humorous. Tests not only judge your skill improvement, they also judge your instructor's ability to help you gain the improvement. Therefore, your instructor wants you do your best at the test for it shows he or she has done his or her job correctly. Your instructor may increase your training intensity and become hyper critical in the days before a test. This helps ensure you will do your best at the test, but it also helps the instructor decide whether you should even be allowed to take the test. The instructor is testing your resolve, to see if you are ready for the next belt level. Do not take the increased training and criticism "personally" and get "stressed." The instructor is doing it for your own good. Take the criticism to heart, and use it for self-improvement. After the test, your instructor will return to his or her old self. Many times, the first couple of weeks of training after a test are more relaxed than usual. Then the cycle starts all over again.