I have been a self- employed plumber for several years now and will not be able to continue in business if I do not pass the new tests and exams.

Sitting exams is something I was never good at and fills me with dread. My livelihood depends on passing. What can I do to overcome this problem?

YOU are not alone. Practical people who work with their hands often have difficulty with the written word and mathematics etc. The reason is simple. Words and numbers are substitutes for real world objects. 6x6x6 is a cube and I guess most of us can visualise a solid object from just 3 numbers.

The problem occurs when we have two or more visualisations to make at once. Imagining a cube of gas for example is a little more difficult because we have never really seen gas and can't visualise it.

I divide people into two categories, concrete and abstract. Einstein may well have been at the abstract extreme with possibly Rambo at the other, with many of us somewhere in the middle.

What happens next is emotional. As soon as you see a written sentence, you are already telling yourself you can't do this. By the time words like Boyles Law and Joules appear, your brain has panicked and left the building without you!

So, what can be done? First, improve your reading. Read books - not necessarily technical ones, novels are far more interesting - and look up words you don't understand. After a short while your word power will increase and you will be better able to express yourself and read well.

Do more writing. Don't worry about spelling mistakes - it is more important to get your point across in as few words as possible. In fact, after every sentence, see if you can knock words out of it without changing the meaning of the sentence.

Next, get hold of as many past exam papers as you can. Most examining bodies will tell you where to find last year's exam papers, with the answers. Many of the same questions re-appear year after year. The reason is that certain areas are vitally important and they have to be sure that you understand the more important aspects of the job, especially safety!

Now, improve your maths. This is not about quadratic equations and parallelograms! It is about basic applied maths, adding up and taking away, percentages, fractions. Find out if calculators are allowed, often they are. Buy a good one and make certain it is a scientific one if you need extra mathematical functions to make life easier.

Get someone to help connect the abstract world to the physical - e.g., a gas might be imagined as millions of tiny billiard balls, so small you cannot even see them. The idea that gas has weight is difficult to visualise but millions of billiard balls is not!

If you grab a beanbag really tightly, it goes more solid because the tiny beads have been compressed. I guess it is the same with gas. If carbon monoxide is heavier than air, imagine the tiny billiard balls of carbon monoxide sinking in air, which you can imagine as water.

If you cannot find a natural 'concrete' teacher, then suggest to your tutor that he or she convert to the concrete whenever possible. Ask them to relate gas to billiard balls, they probably can and will oblige.

Finally, we need to stop your brain leaving the room the moment it panics! When you enter the exam room, you must be focused and methodical. Read the questions carefully and do not panic!

Make certain you really understand what is being asked. Scan all questions carefully and then begin to answer the ones you can. This will build your confidence. Remember, if they seem hard, then others in the room will also be finding them hard.

When this happens, examiners lower the pass mark to suit the average, as they can't always gauge the level of difficulty of any exam paper they set.

Allocate each question a proportion of the overall time of the exam and do not spend too much time on one question.

Eventually you will end up with questions you think are too difficult for you to answer. Now, you can give up or say: "Well, I have half an hour, I may as well relax and think about the question."

There is no pressure at this stage and that often opens the mind and the answer appears. Trust me!

This whole article is about confidence, not panicking and slowly understanding principles rather than taking flight at the first opportunity. One last bit of advice - be motivated. There is no better taskmaster than your own desire to achieve.

KEEP CALM: With the right preparation, you will be able to face the exam with confidence. When you come to sit the test, you must remain focused and methodical