School Exams with Tinnitus

Hello everyone, this weekend will be toughest weekend in my life. In Turkey there is a yearly college entry exam. As a native student I cannot get into any college in Turkey without that exam.

I have a 67 dB tinnitus and it sounds louder when I am stressed. In the exam I will most probably feel it around 75-80 dB. I need to be among the first 300,000 of 3,000,000 people who enters the exam, to get into any engineering field.

But I can't stand silence. I can't Imagine being in complete silence for 3 hours without a break and solving 50 paragraph questions and 40 mathematics problems.

To be able to get a good college education in my country, I need to be successful on that exam. can't afford studying abroad.

Also, I ask myself; "Even if I get into a good college, can I focus on my studies there, will my tinnitus distract me again?"

I tried a practice test before and I couldn't focus on what I read because of my tinnitus. After 30 minutes I gave up and quit.

Before my tinnitus, I was a successful student. But after it I started to lose my focus in lessons and I couldn't hear my inner voice while reading.

 

This is tough buddy. Tinnitus has wrecked my ability to concentrate in silence as well. As we tend to revert to dwelling on the noise as it steals focus. Studying was never my strong suit either.

I wear some Oticon hearing aids that can add white noise and that seems to help entertain the tinnitus a little while trying to be focus driven. I don't know if you can got your hands on any hearing aids. But maybe that could be of some assistance.

God knows if there was a easy way of of this predicament we would be shouting it to the world. Best of luck my friend.

 

Hi @Fanrong. I'm so sorry you are having a hard time. I also struggle a lot with my studies. I'm a second-year med school student and my tinnitus started in January 2022 being 21 years old. It is so loud and my ability to concentrate disappeared. Before tinnitus I was working 12-15 hours a day the days/weeks before an exam.

I saw that your tinnitus has been that bad since January. Is it possible to postpone your exam? I decided to only take 2 exams out of 4 in June. It was a big relief and I think we need some time before getting better. Our tinnitus got bad 5 months ago. It's not that long. I think it would be a good idea to take your exam next year, you are so young and a year not studying to get better is not that bad.

Sorry for my English, it's bad. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask! I wish you all the best!

 

Hello @Fanrong, could you ask to do your exam in another room with background noise? For example, playing low volume radio...

My friend did this and she also asked for extra time for her exam.

Sending hugs. It will get better.

 

Really? How did you come up with that exact number?

 

I am taking the board exam to get my nursing license in three days and I am also super worried about this. I’m so worried that it’s going to negatively affect my performance. My tinnitus has gotten extremely worse within the past week and I have no idea what could have caused it, but I’m hoping it’s just worse because I’m stressed about failing this exam and that it will improve once I take the exam.

I know this thread is several months old and you have probably taken your exam by now, but one thing that temporarily helps me when I study is chewing gum.

 

Wearing white noise generators could help.