Tests Anxiety

You pulled all night to prepare for today’s exam, you reviewed all your notes, and you’ve never been more prepared to ace your test. However,once the professor hands in the test paper, you suddenly freeze up and get a mental blackout. Nervous thoughts of failing fill your head and you find yourself unable to perform well on your test.

The reality is that a lot of students are afflicted with test anxiety, and if you’re one of those suffering from it, then you’re not alone. To know if you experience test anxiety, you can learn more about test anxiety-behavioral symptoms.

What is it?

Test anxiety is the feeling of apprehension, uneasiness or nervousness that one gets before, during, or after taking an exam. Although a certain level of nervousness is normal, test anxiety occurs when the extent of nervousness interferes with the individual’s concentration and causes poor performance during the exam.

Students are the primary sufferers of test anxiety. This happens when students are pressured to get a good grade either for self-worth or approval from parents and social circle. When good performance is expected, the pressure and stress level mounts up on the individual, causing him to feel anxious. This is sometimes evident in test anxiety-behavioral symptoms where a student bites his or her fingernails or drums his pen on the desk.

In most cases, the sense of nervousness is common and normal. A certain level of arousal is required in order to perform best on an exam. However, if the level of arousal or anxiety exceeds the optimum level, then this could result into a decline in performance.

What are some signs and symptoms of test anxiety?

Symptoms of test anxiety include test anxiety-behavioral symptoms, cognitive symptoms, physical symptoms, and emotional symptoms.

Most commonly, one can immediately tell if they’re feeling anxious when they feel butterflies in their stomach, or when one starts to sweat profusely and feel nauseous. Test anxiety is also characterized by rapid heart beat, shortness of breath, or headache/stomachache. These are physical symptoms that are easily noticeable.

Aside from that, one may also experience test anxiety-behavioral symptoms, which include fidgeting in one’s seat, drumming on a desk, nervously chewing on a pen or pencil, and pacing all over the room, among others. More extreme test anxiety-behavioral symptoms would be avoidance or even substance abuse. There are some cases where students purposely delay or avoid taking the test by feigning sickness or coming up with other excuses.

Cognitive symptoms include a negative self-talk, comparing the self to others, nervous thoughts, trouble concentrating, getting a mental “black out,” etc.

Aside from test anxiety-behavioral symptoms, one may also experience emotional symptoms such as excessive feelings of disappointment, anger, fear, and could even lead to depression or hysteria.

Those are some common signs and symptoms of test anxiety. The symptoms not only affect an individual physically, but also emotionally, mentally and behaviorally. One way to tell if you’re experiencing test anxiety is if you have test anxiety-behavioral symptoms.