Exam Anxiety

Boost Your Exam Confidence

Tip: Write down 5 things from the strategies below you most want to try. Set a goal of how many days or weeks to practise. Add a "⭐" every time you do it. When finished, reflect on its effectiveness, adjust for improvements, and then start again. 

Well Before the Exam

• 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.

• Reduce perfectionism behaviours. Perfectionism is the tendency for a person to demand of themself an extremely high, or even flawless level of performance, above what is required by the situation. 

  • • The article "Perfectionism Overcoming All-or-Nothing Thinking" on the Mind Tools website describes strategies that you can use to overcome harmful perfectionism, including 1. Challenging your behavior and beliefs, 2. Setting realistic goals, 3. Listening to your emotions, 4. Not fearing mistakes, 5. Readjusting your personal rules, 6. Focusing on the bigger picture, 7. Relaxing and going with the flow. We encourage you to read this site to reduce and manage the negative effects of perfectionism and reach out to family and support. 

    • 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 counsellor's door (top of A-Block). Talking to a parent, carer or GP is a great strategy for help outside of school as well. 

• Study effectively. Check out the Study Skills page of this website. Skim through the first dot points, choose a podcast and listen to it. This will make it easy to see the big picture of research-proven ways of learning and studying -some of them are even fun. 

• Manage your time. Start studying a few weeks in advance so that you have enough time to prepare for your exam. The Study Planners page has free downloadable study timetables with tips on how to customise it. 

• Create a calming worksheet. Make a calming sheet to carry with you on exam days. Include motivational quotes, reasons you’ll succeed, reminders for breathing techniques, and pictures of supporters (yes, it can be your pet). Try creating visual symbols for reminders. 

• Read the exam outline so you can best prepare. Look at old exams and practise 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.

• Use Atomi if it is available for your course. Atomi provides fast feedback and exam practice.

• Set realistic goals. Learn more about setting goals that are realistic and healthier for you: click here.

• Regularly practice simple mindfulness. A training activity can be as easy as deciding for 30 seconds to turn your awareness to feeling your breathing, just noticing your breath as it enters and exits your nose, and any time your mind wanders, notice this and gently bring your attention back to your breathing. This is simple, effective and free. Learn more about this with guided practice sessions here (it is free, and not religious). 

• Learning Styles is a Myth! Since the 1980's there has been a theory of Learning Styles asserting that people learn best through their preferred mode (Visual, Auditory, Reading, Kinesthetic (movement)). This has been disproved countless times but the idea persists (Baker, nd). People can indeed have a preferred style of receiving information, but it does not mean that people learn better through a preferred mode. Indeed if it takes a little more effort to learn something, like Retrieval Practice as a study technique, the effort leads to learning effectively and mixing up the mode of learning leads to better learning.

Immediately Before the Exam

• Get a good night’s sleep (7-9 hours) the night before the exam. Your ability to think clearly and deal with stress improves with sleep.

• Eat something to help with focus and attention. Bring water to stay hydrated.

• Avoid caffeine, or at least avoid too much of it. Caffeine is infamous for making people nervous

• Gather pens, water and any required tools like a calculator, so that you are not rushing around before the exam.

• Calming & familiar music can help you relax.

• Arrive early enough so you have time to chat with classmates

• Earplugs can be an option and helpful if you get distracted by noise.

• Challenge negative thoughts and feelings as they arise if they are not helpful. Notice the thought, name it, remind yourself that you don't have to engage in it, and turn your awareness to feeling your breathing, just noticing how it feels, extending your outward breaths. *This is a skill you can practice daily to make it more effective.   

During the Exam

• Breathe deeply from your belly.

• Consciously relax your body, section by section.

• Sitting up & relaxing your shoulders can help you feel more powerful and confident.

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.”

• 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 and come back later to this.”

• Focus on yourself and what you are doing. Ignore other people around you and don’t compare yourself to others.

• Keep realistic expectations. 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. 

• Acknowledge and cheer (inwardly) each time you make some progress.

To 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.

Getting Help at Smith's Hill High School

Asking for some support is brave and smart, and it's the first step to working things out.

At Smith's Hill High School, if you need help with your wellbeing, you have some great options:

• Speak to your year advisor or a trusted teacher.

• Speak to the Wellbeing Team in the Learning Hub (upstairs A-block), they can also help connect you with a school counsellor.

• You can request to see the school counsellor; collect a form from Student Services (Administration building) or outside the school counsellor's door (top of A-Block). 

• Mr (Library) Jones also has good strategies and resources to help with both exam anxiety, and studying effectively (which can reduce exam anxiety).

Free Support Services

If you need support to deal with difficult feelings after reading this page, students at SHHS can access support through the Learning Hub, the school office, your Year Advisor, trusted teachers and parents and carers. Also support is available from the following free support services:

Beyond Blue Support Service

• Telephone 1300 224 636, 24 hours, 7 days a week.

• Chat online 3pm to 12am AEST, 7 days a week.

• Email for free, short-term counselling, advice and referral services.

• Website: Beyond Blue Support Service.

Lifeline Crisis Support

• This confidential service provides support when you are feeling overwhelmed, having difficulty coping or thinking about suicide.

• Speak to a crisis support worker by telephone on 13 11 14, 24 hours, 7 days a week.

• Chat online 7pm to 12pm, 7 nights a week.

• Website: Lifeline Crisis Support.

1800RESPECT

• For support if you are affected by sexual assault or domestic and family violence or abuse.

• Telephone 1800 737 732, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• Chat online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• Website: 1800RESPECT.

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

Baker, L., (n.d.). Guest post: Matching instruction to preferred learning styles does not raise achievement. The Learning Scientists. Retrieved from https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2022/4/6-1

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

https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/counseling-and-psychological-services/index.php?q=managing-test-anxiety

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.

Perfectionism: Overcoming All-or-Nothing Thinking. (n.d.). Mind Tools. Retrieved from: https://www.mindtools.com/a4jvsqi/perfectionism

Parker, J. D. A., Saklofske, D. H., & Keefer, K. V. (2017). Giftedness and academic success in college and university: Why emotional intelligence matters. Gifted education international, 33(2), 183-194. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261429416668872

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.