Tests Anxiety

A lot of students nowadays experience test anxiety. Although it would be normal for the average student to feel anxious during exams, there are some individuals who are too nervous that the anxiety takes over other bodily functions and gets in the way of one’s concentration and performance during the test.

Test anxiety is a type of situation anxiety trait where test takers feel anxious or worrisome before, during, and after taking an exam. This has nothing to do with how prepared you are for a test, because real test anxiety occurs when you have prepared well for an exam and yet you don’t perform well on the test because of your uncontrollable emotions, excessive worrying, and the like.

Test anxiety can happen to anyone, but it is more common to some students. Test anxiety-the profile of the suffered people usually include individuals with low self esteem or for those who associate getting a high score with self worth.

Negative thinking such as “I can’t do this. I’ll surely fail because I’m not as smart as him” is just the type of thought that fuels anxiousness and worry. Negative thoughts then affect physical body functions and cause one to perspire or feel nauseous. One may also feel jittery and start to drum the desk or pace around. Still, others develop a mental black out and forget a lot of facts previously studied and end up remembering them only after taking the test.

Specifically, students who are often pressured to excel, either for social status or for parents’ approval, tend to fit into the test anxiety-the profile of the suffered people. This anxiety is fueled by the fear of failing or the fear of being labeled as “stupid.” When this happens, the pressure becomes too much to bear and could develop into a test anxiety.

Test anxiety-the profile of the suffered people also includes gifted and above-average students who often aim for perfection. This arises over frustration from “less than perfect” score results.

Also, some parents of gifted students can sometimes impose high expectations over their children, causing them to feel pressured in getting a higher test score. This makes gifted or above-average students candidates for test anxiety-the profile of the suffered people.

However,although the common anxiety for students is to get a low score on the test, there are others, especially with the more gifted students, who feel anxious by appearing “too smart,” which is sometimes the case when they are enrolled together with average children. This is also another reason why they are susceptible to test anxiety-the profile of the suffered people.

Generally speaking, anyone may experience test anxiety in his lifetime. Those gifted children who belong to test anxiety-the profile of the suffered people are just more prone to experiencing such because of higher expectations and pressure level imposed on them. Or, in the case of average students belonging to the test anxiety-the profile of the suffered people, those who equate a high score with self-worth or importance may also be prone to test anxiety because of the pressure to not want to appear “dumb” or “stupid” when compared to others.