Articles of Interest » Testing Anxiety

Coping with Test Anxiety/Test Preparation by: Dr. Charlene Sorensen

Meredith — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:29:05 +0000

Since you are required to take tests during the course of your education, stress and anxiety are things you need to learn to manage. There are specific things that you can do during the semester to reduce your level of stress.

One Thing at a Time

Often life seems crowded with things to do, people to see, email to answer, etc. It’s important for you to set priorities and make choices about what needs to be done first. If you find yourself focusing on the stresses in your life, try writing down your worries. That way you can set them aside, and come back and think about them later when you have more time.

Follow a Regular Routine

Following a regular routine helps to reduce stress. Performing the same tasks every day will make you more comfortable. Your regular routine should include:

exercise
studying
class preparation
a healthy diet
ample sleep
time with friends

Visualize the Test Experience

Visualization is a way to mentally practice taking a test.

With your eyes closed, picture yourself in the test taking room. See your self looking at the test and remembering each answer as it comes.
Mentally review what you know about the subject (if you do not know enough, go back and review).
Use the 3-breath technique every time you feel stress or worry.

Beware of the “Leap and Dive” Effect

Many habits of mind and body can cause a “leap and dive” effect. Anything that makes you feel too high will later cause you to crash to a low. These leaps and dives of emotion can distort your thinking and make it hard to concentrate. When you are trying to study, you should avoid the mental and physical behaviors that cause these leaps and dives.

Examples of things that you should avoid because they cause a temporary “leap” are:

foods that are high in sugar
concerns about the future
not enough sleep
romantic concerns
drugs and alcohol

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Test Anxiety and Relaxation

Meredith — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:16:22 +0000

Strategies for coping with test anxiety

1. Prepare adequately.

Read appropriate materials.

Review systematically over a period of weeks.2. Determine which stressors in your life can be changed and change them.
3. Practice anxiety reducing exercises regularly over a period of weeks.Anxiety Reducing Exercises

Deep Breathing

What ? Yes, breathe. Most of us breathe improperly most of the time. We tend to take quick breaths and never get quite enough oxygen into our bodies.

When an insufficient amount of fresh air reaches your lungs, your blood is not properly purified or oxygenated. Poorly oxygenated blood contributes to anxiety states, depression, and fatigue, and makes each stressful situation many times harder to cope with. Proper breathing habits are essential for good mental and physical health.

Visualization-Positive Rehearsal

Find a comfortable chair. Sit down in the most relaxed position that you can. Close your eyes and do some deep breathing. Now begin to imagine what is going to happen on exam day, in a totally positive way. Imagine yourself getting up in the morning, following your morning routine, and then going off to take the exam. Imagine it in considerable detail. See yourself walking into the examination room. Hear the other students shuffle in their seats. Feel the desk, the pencil in your hand and see the exam in front of you. See yourself looking over the exam calmly and confidently. See yourself looking at the exam and discovering that the questions are perfectly clear to you! You work rapidly and accurately. When you have finished you hand in your exam and walk self-confidently out of the room, experiencing the feeling of having done well. Breathe a sigh of relief and satisfaction.

Now imagine it is several days later. You return to the examination room and you receive the results of your test. Breathe. You look. You see an excellent score. You congratulate yourself quietly and leave the room.

Rehearse this scenario a number of times. Visualization really works. Professional athletes regularly use this technique to improve performance.

Another aspect of rehearsal is desensitization. This means to take as much of the “scare” out of the exam as possible. If you can, visit the actual site of the test and walk around the room. Sit in the desks. Go to the front of the room. Sit at the teacher’s desk if you can – anything you can do to desensitize yourself to the testing environment.

Avoiding Doom Mongers

One way to reduce test anxiety is to avoid other students who increase your anxiety – either by talking about how hard the test or by convincing you that you have not prepared properly. STAY AWAY FROM NEGATIVE PEOPLE – they only increase your anxiety.

Focus on the Task at Hand

Research shows that students who do well on tests think about the test itself while test anxious students focus on their feelings about the test. Try to stay positive and focus on the test itself and not on your feelings about the test. Concentrate on the task at hand and tell yourself that you will feel your symptoms later.

Thought Stopping

Thought Stopping can help reduce test anxiety before, during and after an exam. Thought stopping involves listening to your negative thoughts – negative self talk like – “I never pass essay exams. I can’t find the answer to #3; I know I will get the rest wrong too! What am I doing in college?; I don’t belong here.” Be aware of what you are saying to yourself. THEN STOP SAYING IT!! It won’t help you to do better; it will only interfere with your thinking.

Say to yourself, “stop” to interrupt the negative thoughts. It has been well documented that negative and frightening thoughts increase your anxiety and increase your physical symptoms of anxiety.

You don’t have to convince yourself that you are doing fine; just convince yourself to stop scaring yourself to death. Say “stop” and then say something realistic like “I’m doing the best I can and am just going to keep working – taking my time. Then we will see the results.”

If you are in a test situation, you can say , “stop” quietly to yourself. Sometimes it helps to add a physical cue. You might want to pinch your finger lightly when you say stop – to get your attention.

Or you could slap your leg lightly – anything to add a physical stimulus to your mental one.

Keep Practicing

Test anxiety takes time to develop and time to go away. Be patient with yourself and keep trying to figure out ways that reduce your stress level. After your test, you might want to write a list of the things that come into your mind when you are taking a test and then do a reality check . Many time these messages are totally unrealistic. Try to substitute realistic responses for these “scare messages” and write them down somewhere you can look at them often.

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Stress Management on Test Day

Meredith — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:01:34 +0000

There are several ways you can bring down your level of test anxiety on test day. They’ll work best if you practice them in the weeks before the test, so you know which ones work best for you.

Deep breathing. Take a deep breath while you count to five. Hold it for a count of one, then let it out on a count of five. Repeat several times.

Move your body. Try rolling your head in a circle. Rotate your shoulders. Shake your hands from the wrist. Many people find these movements very relaxing.

Visualize again. Think of the place where you are most relaxed: such as lying on the beach in the sun or, walking through the park. Now close your eyes and imagine you’re actually there. If you practice in advance, you’ll find that you only need a few seconds of this exercise to experience a significant increase in your sense of well-being.

When anxiety threatens to overwhelm you right there during the exam, there are still things you can do to manage the stress level:

Repeat your self-confidence messages. You should have them memorized by now. Say them quietly to yourself, and believe them!

Visualize one more time. This time, visualize yourself moving smoothly and quickly through the test answering every question right and finishing just before time is up. Like most visualization techniques, this one works best if you’ve practiced it ahead of time.

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Combating Test Anxiety

Meredith — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:51:13 +0000

The first thing you need to know is that a little test anxiety is a good thing. Everyone gets nervous before a big exam – and if that nervousness motivates you to prepare thoroughly, so much the better. It’s said that Sir Laurence Olivier, one of the foremost British actors of this century, threw up before every performance. His stage fright didn’t impair his performance; in fact, it probably gave him a little extra edge-just the kind of edge you need to do well, whether on a stage or in an examination room.

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Dos and Don’ts of Dealing with Test Anxiety

Meredith — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:31:08 +0000

Don’t cram for an exam. The amount you learn won’t be worth the stress.
Don’t think of yourself or the test in a negative sense.
Don’t stay up late studying the night before. You need the sleep. Begin studying a week in advance if possible.
Don’t spend time with classmates who generate stress for you on test day.
Don’t take those last few moments before the test for last minute cramming. Try to relax and spend that time reading the newspaper or some other distraction.
Do remind yourself that the test is only a test.
Do focus on integrating details into main ideas.
Do reward yourself after the test with food or a movie or some other treat.
Do something relaxing the last hour before the test.
Do tell yourself that you will do your best on the test, and that will be enough!

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Dealing with Physical Tension

Meredith — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:21:50 +0000

Here are a few exercises you can try to help relieve the tension in your body. It can help you relax and boost your energy level.

Focal Breathing

Often, stress is a result of a lack of oxygen. This exercise focuses on breathing and optimizing oxygen intake on every breath. Start by exhaling all the air in your lungs. Exhale slowly for ten seconds. Then, keep exhaling until you feel your lungs are completely empty. Breathe in through the nose to a count of eight. Keep your shoulders down and focus on filling your rib cage. As you feel it expand, start to push down into your abdomen. You should feel your lower body expand and near the end, pressure in your lower back as your diaphragm lowers.

Exhale slowly, focusing your breathing by shaping your lips in an ooh position. Pretend there is a candle in front of your mouth that you are trying to blow out. Focusing on this type of breathing will help to focus your mind as well as work to re-oxygenate your blood and reenergize your body.

Body Check

Sit down someplace comfortable and close your eyes. Focus on the muscles in your feet and notice if there is any tension. Tell the muscles in your feet that they can relax.

Do the same with your ankles, then move up to your calves, thighs, and buttocks. Tell each group of muscles to relax. Work slowly being sure to scout out any tension that may be hiding in obscure places.

Do the same for your lower back, diaphragm, chest, upper back, neck, shoulders, jaw, face, upper arms, lower arms, fingers, and scalp. Pretend you are tracking an electrical current through your body that it starting at your toes and escaping from your fingertips and scalp. You may have to do this twice to be sure not to overlook any tension, but be thorough in your search.

Tense and Relax

When scanning your body, you will find tense muscles or groups of muscles. This method will help you to relax that area. Focus on that muscle and increase the tension. If your shoulders are tense, flex them and pull them back. Arch your back to make them even tenser and hold that position for a count of five.

Then, relax the muscle slowly and keep relaxing the muscle until all the tension is gone. In this way, you can consciously purge that area of all stress.

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Dealing with Thoughts

Meredith — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:12:18 +0000

Yell STOP!

If you feel yourself beginning to brew a storm of anxiety, stop what you’re doing and mentally draw a blank. Wait for the clouds to clear before continuing. If you are in an environment that permits it, actually tell yourself to STOP! This may embarrass you a little, but at least it will get your mind off the stress. It may take a while for your mind to clear, but wait for it. The time spent doing this will in the end be less than the time lost due to poor performance because of stress.

Daydream

Work! Work! Work! All through school, you are told this. In class, your teacher may have scolded you for daydreaming. Now, forget all that. Allow yourself the benefit of daydreaming. If you feel overwhelmed by the material, let your mind wander. Think of being with a friend or at a place of comfort and let your body relax. Feel the physical tension in your body release, and then return to the grindstone.

Visualize Success

Anyone who has been involved with some form of athletics knows the value of visualization. Basketball players who visualize their shots have a higher scoring ratio. The same applies for academics. Most people contemplate what failure will feel like. Doing this only sets you up for the fall. Instead, spend time visualizing success. Rehearse what it will feel like to get that A. Be specific with your goals, and physically produce them for yourself. If your goal is to ace an upcoming exam, put a copy of a previous exam on the bulletin board in your dorm or apartment and write a big ‘A’ on it. If your goal is a specific GPA for the semester, write that figure on the board and chart your progress. Thinking positively results in a higher level of energy and stress levels drop.

Focus

Focus on the task at hand. Alright, I know I just said take time to daydream, and you should. But afterwards, when you are working, do not allow outside influences to pervade your thoughts. This allows for efficient use of time. If you have multiple projects, as most of us do, work on one at a time. If you feel yourself stressing about another course, write a note and assure yourself you’ll get to it. Then, forget about it until you are finished with what you are doing.

During an exam, if you feel yourself becoming overwhelmed, take a few moments to focus on something in the room. Consider the texture of the desk or your eraser, listen to the sounds of the lights in the room, or focus on something within the room. This can help you clear your mind of outside thoughts before continuing the exam.

Praise yourself

Talk to yourself using positive language. Treat yourself as you would a friend. By the way, this is good advice throughout life, not just during an exam. Rather than saying, ‘Way to go dummy, you don’t even know the answer to the first question!’ try, ‘Get back to that question, maybe it will come to you as you work through the rest of the exam.’ Encourage yourself and promise yourself a treat after you finish the exam regardless of your feelings toward your performance. This helps you to focus on something other than the importance of this particular exam. Keep in mind that no one exam is going to completely devastate your career as a student.

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Symptoms of Test Anxiety

Meredith — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:59:19 +0000

It is normal to feel nervous about an exam. In fact, it is beneficial to be moderately stressed right before the exam. A little tension can give you just the right amount of adrenaline you need to do your best. It can heighten your awareness and sharpen your reflexes, allowing you to perform more quickly. It can even help you recall information you may not have otherwise remembered.

However, if your level of stress rises too high, it can result in insomnia, loss of appetite, and sometimes even hair loss! This can obviously affect your performance on the exam. So how do you know if you suffer from test anxiety? Here is a checklist to see if you may be a little too frazzled…

Test anxiety quiz (don’t stress, it’s a take home!)

(True/False)

I have trouble sleeping at night and spend those last few minutes before sleep worrying about upcoming exams or projects.
The day of an exam, I experience drastic appetite changes and either overeat, or skip breakfast and lunch.
While studying for or taking an exam, I often feel a sense of hopelessness or dread.
While studying or taking an exam, I have problems concentrating and I sometimes feel bored or tired.
I often yawn during an exam or while studying.
During an exam, I often feel confused or panic.
During an exam, I experience sweaty palms, mental blocks.
While taking an exam, I sometimes experience headaches, vomiting, or fainting.

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Overcoming Test Anxiety

Meredith — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:33:24 +0000

Most students experience some level of anxiety during an exam
However, when anxiety affects exam performance it has become a problem.

General preparation/building confidence:

Review your personal situation and skills
Academic counselors can help you in these areas, or refer to our Guides on the topic:

•Developing good study habits and strategies (a link to our directory)
•Managing time
(dealing with procrastination, distractions, laziness)
•Organizing material to be studied and learned
Take a step by step approach to build a strategy and not get overwhelmed
•Outside pressures
success/failure consequences (grades, graduation), peer pressure, competitiveness, etc.
•Reviewing your past performance on tests to improve and learn from experience

Test preparation to reduce anxiety:

•Approach the exam with confidence:
Use whatever strategies you can to personalize success: visualization, logic,   talking to your self, practice, team work, journaling, etc.
View the exam as an opportunity to show how much you’ve studied and to   receive a reward for the studying you’ve done
•Be prepared!
Learn your material thoroughly and organize what materials you will need for   the test. Use a checklist
•Choose a comfortable location for taking the test with good lighting and   minimal distractions
•Allow yourself plenty of time, especially to do things you need to do before   the test and still get there a little early
•Avoid thinking you need to cram just before
•Strive for a relaxed state of concentration
Avoid speaking with any fellow students who have not prepared, who express   negativity, who will distract your preparation

•A program of exercise is said to sharpen the mind
•Get a good night’s sleep the night before the exam
•Don’t go to the exam with an empty stomach
Fresh fruits and vegetables are often recommended to reduce stress.
Stressful foods can include processed foods, artificial sweeteners, carbonated   soft drinks, chocolate, eggs, fried foods, junk foods, pork, red meat, sugar,   white flour products, chips and similar snack foods, foods containing   preservatives or heavy spices
•Take a small snack, or some other nourishment to help take your mind off of   your anxiety.
Avoid high sugar content (candy) which may aggravate your condition

During the test:

•Read the directions carefully
•Budget your test taking time
•Change positions to help you relax
•If you go blank, skip the question and go on
•If you’re taking an essay test and you go blank on the whole test, pick a question and start writing. It may trigger the answer in your mind
•Don’t panic when students start handing in their papers. There’s no reward for being the first done

If you find yourself tensing and getting anxious during the test:

•Relax; you are in control.
Take slow, deep breaths
•Don’t think about the fear
Pause: think about the next step and keep on task, step by step
•Use positive reinforcement for yourself:
Acknowledge that you have done, and are doing, your best
•Expect some anxiety
It’s a reminder that you want to do your best and can provide energy
Just keep it manageable
•Realize that anxiety can be a “habit” and that it takes practice to use it as a tool to succeed

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Test Taking and Anxiety

Meredith — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:13:14 +0000

Multiple Choice- If you must guess, keep in mind the following tips for multiple choice tests:

Sometimes lengthy or highly specific answers will be the correct answer.
Be aware of words like “always,” “never,” “only,” “must,” and “completely.” These are usually the wrong answers since there are many exceptions to rules. These are extreme words that are more than likely to be the wrong choice.

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