Exam Anxiety
What does "Exam Anxiety" mean for you? It is normal across a student population to have a range of responses from "Exams make me very anxious, I can never properly represent my learning, why do we have to have them?" to "I love exams, they are always interesting and I love that type of challenge", and of course, lots of variations in between. The activities on this webpage are designed to reduce or prevent exam anxiety for all students.
Feeling nervous about exams is a normal feeling among school students. However, extreme feelings of anxiety and stress before and during an exam can have unhealthy results. Anxiety can be problematic when it prevents you from taking or doing your best on an exam, causes you to feel anxious all the time, or becomes extreme.
Exam anxiety is a combination of physical symptoms and emotional reactions that interfere with your ability to perform well on exams. Many students experience varying levels of exam anxiety for a number of different reasons. If you’re someone who does, check out these suggestions and resources to reduce your exam anxiety and improve your overall examination experience at school. Even if you do not experience exam anxiety, many of the tips below may help you have the best exam experience you can.
Symptoms of Exam Anxiety
Exam anxiety might look different from student to student, but the following is a list of possible symptoms you might experience:
Physical symptoms: Headache, nausea, excessive sweating, shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat, lightheadedness, and feeling faint. Exam anxiety can also cause panic attacks, which are the abrupt onset of intense fear or discomfort in which you may feel like you are unable to breathe or like you are having a heart attack.
Emotional symptoms: Feelings of stress, fear, helplessness, and disappointment, negative thoughts (rumination about past poor performances, consequences of failure, feeling inadequate, helpless), mind going blank, and racing thoughts.
Behavioural/cognitive symptoms: Difficulty concentrating, thinking negatively, comparing yourself to others, and procrastinating.
Causes of Exam Anxiety
Fear of failure. While the pressure of doing well on an exam can be motivating, it can be detrimental to your self-worth if you associate the grade of the exam with your value.
Lack of preparation. Waiting until the last minute or not studying at all can leave you feeling anxious and overwhelmed.
Poor examination history. Not succeeding on the previous exam can make you anxious for the next exam. It is important to remember to stay in the present moment when taking an exam so you remain focused. Don’t dwell on the past.
High pressure. If you need a certain grade to pass the class, it could increase your exam anxiety.
Unrealistic expectations. If you set goals that are not realistic, you may be setting yourself up for disappointment.
Perfectionism. Perfectionism is having extremely high-performance expectations for yourself.
Negative self-talk. People can get in the habit of thinking negative thoughts about themselves, their actions and their abilities. Read the next section for tips to work on improving this.
How to Reduce Exam Anxiety
Well Before the Exam
Be prepared. Start studying a few weeks in advance so that you have enough time to prepare for your exam. Space your studying out into smaller chunks over time. Use one of the Learning Center’s weekly calendars to make a schedule.
Study effectively. Check out the Learning Center’s tips for studying effectively to learn about and use effective study strategies that adequately prepare you for exams and help you learn, understand, and remember the material.
Engage in self-care. Take care of your overall health by eating well, getting enough restful sleep, incorporating exercise or movement into your day, and participating in relaxing and fun activities that you enjoy.
Create a calming worksheet. This is a paper that you can carry with you all the time and especially before your exam. On this paper you can put motivational quotes, why you are likely to succeed, breathing techniques, pictures of your supporters, and anything else that will keep you motivated without making you anxious. Create this several days in advance, when you are not stressed and anxious, so that you can turn to it if you do become anxious.
Talk to your teacher to get an idea of what is on the exam and what to expect. Look at old exams and practice exams from that class. This can help you better understand what to expect and better prepare. It will also reduce some of the fear and anxiety of the unknown.
Set realistic goals. Learn more about setting goals that are realistic and healthier for you: click here.
Negative self-talk. Mindfullness is a scientifically proven way to reduce negative self-talk. As a starting point, consider learning from Headspace, click here to go to their website. If you need to, reach out to the Smith's Hill Wellbeing team for more support.
Practise exams. Talk to your teacher about trying some practise exams. Two options might include: 1. At home in a quiet space, try to answer some practise exam questions. Practise and familiarisation can help you feel more comfortable with exams. 2. Ask your teacher if there is time to do some practise exams in class in exam conditions.
Immediately Before the Exam
Get a good night’s sleep (7-9 hours) the night before the exam. Your ability to think clearly and to deal with anxiety improve with sleep.
Eat something to help with focus and attention. Bring water to stay hydrated.
Avoid too much caffeine. If you’ve been hitting the caffeine hard to stay awake and study or to stay focused, know that it can also have a negative effect on your nerves.
Gather all of the materials you need in advance, including a pencil, eraser, or calculator, so that you are not rushing around before the exam.
Play calming or familiar music to help you relax.
Arrive to the exam early enough to find a seat that will help, not hinder your focus. (Do you focus best upfront? Near a window? Know yourself.)
Bring earplugs if you get distracted by noise.
Don’t let the exam define you. Remember that your self-worth and intelligence does not depend on your performance on this one exam.
Give yourself a pep talk to reframe your anxiety as excitement. Actually telling yourself you’re excited will help you see the exam more positively and experience more positive emotions.
During the Exam
Calm your body.
Breathe deeply from your belly.
Tighten various muscle groups, and then relax them.
Stand and stretch or shrug shoulders.
Close your eyes and count to ten.
Sit comfortably
Sitting up, relaxing your shoulders, and being mindful of your posture can help you feel more powerful, confident, and assertive. It makes you less stressed, sluggish, and anxious.
Research shows that slouching and hunching poses decrease people’s persistence and creativity when trying to solve complex problems and increase negative self-thoughts.
Research shows people have higher self-esteem and think of themselves more positively when they sit upright rather than hunched.
Calm your emotions and thoughts.
Focus only on the present moment to help you stay grounded.
Example: “I am sitting at a desk at Smith's Hill. It is 2:00 pm on Tuesday. It's comfortably warm.”
Avoid thoughts about the future or past.
Example: “I need an A on this exam in order to improve my rank.”
Example: “I should have done more practice problems.”
Replace negative thoughts as they arise with positive ones.
Example: “It’s okay if I can’t answer this question—I can answer another question instead.”
Stay focused on the current task, which is to complete the exam, not on how you believe it relates to your self-value.
Focus on yourself and what you are doing. Ignore other people around you and don’t compare yourself to others.
Keep realistic expectations. Often times it is not realistic to expect a 100% on an exam. Be okay with doing well, not perfectly. Even if you do not do well at all, that is okay, we all have rough exam experiences sometimes. Let the exam experience and the exam feedback be an opportunity for making positive plans going forwards, even consider learning some new study techniques that may help you for your whole learning life.
Visual Guide to Reducing Exam Stress
PreparingForExams_INFOGRAPHIC_Maggie_Dent.pdfTo download a copy of the visual guide (shown above) to reducing exam stress click here.
Maggie Dent is a teacher and psychologist who is an expert on the adolescent brain and how you learn. If you are interested in learning more about how your brain works and how you can help your brain best read her free 24 page eBook that will give you understanding and strategies to be a better learner.
Brain-Power_OutsideKitBag-1.pdfGetting Help at Smith's Hill High School
Needing help does not indicate that you are not intelligent, but reaching out for help when you can't solve problems yourself does indicate that you are intelligent!
At Smith's Hill High School, if you need help with your wellbeing, please speak to your year advisor, a trusted teacher, or you can make a request to see the school counsellor via email (provided to you by the wellbeing team), or use the paper referral form available from Student Services Reception in A Block. This paper referral is also available outside the school counsellors door (top of A-Block).
References
Arana, F. and Furlan, L. (2015). Groups of perfectionists, exam anxiety, and pre-exam coping in Argentine students. Science Direct. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886915300222
Cuddy, Amy (2015). Presence: Bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges. New York: Little, Brown, & Co.
Downs, C. Managing test anxiety. Brown University. Retrieved from
Dent, M., (2021). Maggie Dent, Quietly Improving Lives. Retrieved from https://www.maggiedent.com/
Eum, K., & Rice, K. G. (2011). Test anxiety, perfectionism, goal orientation, and academic
performance. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 24(2), 167-178.
Holschuh, J. and Nist, S. (2000). Active learning: Strategies for college success. Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.
10 ways to overcome test anxiety. The Princeton Review. Retrieved from https://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/test-anxiety.
Szafran, R. (1981). Question-pool study guides. Teaching Sociology, 9, 31-43.
Kondo, D. S. (1997). Strategies for coping with test anxiety. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, 10, 203-215.
This work is in part copied and adapted from the following source: The Learning Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/tackling-test-anxiety/). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License.