Embrace Your Test Anxiety
Trembling hands, palms drenched in sweat, and butterflies in the stomach are sensations that make up a perfectly orchestrated anxiety response.
We have all been there. Anxiety is a normal emotional response that motivates us to show up for the task at hand regardless of the occasion. Worrying lets us know what we attribute value to. If we did not care about what we are doing, we probably would not get anxious over it.
While anxiety is helpful to an extent, overdosing on it could lead to mental turmoil. College students are especially prone to anxiety because of the high-stakes situations they are faced with. For instance, consequences for poor performance on exams could mean the loss of crucial scholarships, internships and job opportunities. That is why it is important to develop skills to work with your anxiety so that it works in your favor.
Three components of anxiety
There are three components to test anxiety: 1) worry 2) physiological arousal 3) preoccupation with the worry and physiological arousal. Fearful thoughts about failing a class, for example, may get the best of you during an exam. You could be so immersed in your worries that you have no energy left to focus on the test itself. In fact, researchers suggest that it is the relationship we have with our anxiety that influences our performance the most.
Unrealistic thinking patterns also heighten anxiety by widening the gap between your current and ideal selves. “I will never be as good as X even if I study” or “I will never have enough time to get ready for the exam” are examples of thinking patterns that hinder students’ ability to focus on the task at hand. Moreover, these types of worries negatively impact the working memory which is crucial for the regulation of small bits of information necessary to do the task at hand.
What can you do?
University of Chicago researchers, Gerardo Ramirez and Sian L. Beilock suggest that writing about worries for 10 minutes before an upcoming high-pressure situation improves performance. In their study, the researchers had participants take a math test that either elicited a high or low-performance pressure. While the control group sat quietly before their exam, the expressive writing group were instructed to write openly about their thoughts and feelings regarding the exam. The post-test results showed that the expressive writing group outperformed the control by 5%.
Developing effective study strategies will also assuage test-taking fears. Instead of a cram session the night before your exam, start studying test material early on. This way, you will have time to do group study sessions and ask your peers and/or professors about confusing topics.
Remember that you may still feel anxious on the test day. And that is perfectly normal! If you get stuck on a question for some reason, move on to the ones that you know best. Take deep breaths in between questions to give yourself a mental break for a couple of seconds.
Most importantly, do not hesitate to ask for help if you sense that your anxiety is impacting your day-to-day life.
Happy studying!
REFERENCES
- 1. Ramirez G., & Beilock L. S. (2011). Writing about testing worries boosts exam performance in the classroom. Science, 331. www.sciencemag.org
- 2. P. Miyake, P. Shah, Eds., Models of Working Memory: Mechanisms of Active Maintenance and Executive Control (Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, 1999).
- 3. https://cmhc.utexas.edu/testanxiety.html
- 4. http://www.psikiyatri.org.tr/halka-yonelik/13/sinav-kaygisi