A protein-packed breakfast, plenty of water and time out from study - that's how Blanche Edwards plans to deal with the pressures of exams.
The 18-year-old Rotorua Girls' High School student is preparing for her NCEA Level 3 chemistry exam on Monday morning.
Along with NCEA Level 1 chemistry, Level 2 art history and scholarship drama, it's first on the 2007 national secondary exams timetable.
Blanche is one of 9067 secondary school students in the Bay of Plenty region sitting exams this year. There are 140,000 nationally.
To prepare for her exams, Blanche has come up with a study timetable.
She is sitting eight other exams - NCEA Level 3 English, calculus, statistics, biology and physics as well as scholarship English, physics and biology.
She studies four subjects for about an-hour-and-a-half each on weekend days or study days at school.
She also spends one to two hours every evening at home studying different topics.
Blanche says it's important to have a good breakfast to get the mind going. She eats scrambled eggs because she believes the protein will help her think.
She also makes sure she gets enough sleep, eats well and regularly, drinks plenty of water and has a few hours off studying every night to relax which she does by watching television.
Despite her stringent attempts to stay calm as she prepares for her exams, Blanche admits she is "feeling a bit nervous" about her chemistry exam because it is the first one of the year.
"It's quite a challenging subject,"
She expects to be feeling the pressure of exams over the next couple of weeks although she does what she can to alleviate the stress and is confident she'll do well.
"I'm feeling different degrees of confidence for different exams but I think I'll be all right for all of them."
Blanche's last exam is on November 30 although other students will be sitting exams until December 5.
As soon as she has finished, Blanch plans to hang out with her friends, relax, maybe go to the beach and enjoy her holiday before she heads for university next year.
She'll be studying towards a Bachelor of Science and bio-medicine at the University of Auckland and while not yet sure what area she would like to pursue a career in, she is interested in research.
Breakfast helps beat exam stress
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