Reducing Anxiety

Test taking anxiety is when a student excessively worries about doing well on a test. This can become a major hindrance on test performance and cause extreme nervousness and memory lapses among other symptoms. The following are tips on reducing test taking anxiety.

• Be well prepared.
• Space out your studying over a few days or weeks, continually review the material.
• DO NOT procrastinate and wait until the night before.
• Maintain a positive attitude
• Exercise for a few days before the test
• Get a good night’s sleep.
• Bring gum to the test site - you cannot bring a drink and gum will help with the thirst you will have from the test anxiety.
• Show up early so you are not worrying about being late to add to your stress.
• Stay relaxed. If you start to get nervous take a few deep breaths.
• Read the directions slowly and carefully.
• Skim through the test to get an idea of how to pace yourself.
• Do the simple questions first to build your confidence for the harder questions.
• If you do not know an answer, skip it, then return later if you have time.
• Focus on the question at hand; don’t let your mind wander on other things.

Additional resources

• Overcoming test anxiety
• Test and study skills wiki

Attributions

Test Taking and Study Skills Wiki by Michael Fisher, used under CC BY SA

Stack of books (altered) downloaded from dreamstime created by Yong hian Lim