How to Cope With Test Anxiety
Most students experience some degree of test anxiety. Test anxiety refers to a combination of physiological, emotional, and psychological components that are caused by the stress of taking exams. This may interfere with one's ability to think, reason, and plan. For some students, test anxiety is an unpleasant experience but doesn't necessarily interfere with exam performance. For other students, however, test anxiety is not only an unpleasant experience but also seriously interferes with exam performance.
One component of test anxiety is called the emotional component. It includes different kinds of physiological responses, such as sweaty palms, increased heart rate, and dry mouth. Experiencing this component of test anxiety causes stress, which can interfere with processing information and increase the chances of making mistakes. To reduce the emotional component, researchers have found that students should participate in relaxation exercises.
The other component of test anxiety is the psychological component, which has to do with worry about performance. This excessive worrying about performance interferes with the ability of students to read accurately and understand the materials they are reading. One way to reduce this component is for students to direct their worry into studying rather than directing it into taking the test.
There are several ways in which one could cope with test anxiety: 1) select a place to study that you feel comfortable in; 2) reward yourself for studying; 3) keep record of your study time; 4) organize your schedule to fit each task; 5) complete each task before going on to another.
Two of the most important study skills are setting goals and taking notes. A student may set a time goal, such as studying a few hours a week; set a general goal, such as trying to study hard and stay on schedule; set a specific performance goal, such as getting at least 80% of the homework problems correct. Another important study skill is taking notes. Students generally make two kinds of mistakes in taking notes. One is to try to write down everything the instructor says, which leads to confusing notes. The other is to copy concepts that they do not understand but hope to learn by memorization. Good notes are compromised of the following: 1) written information summarized in your own words; 2) outline the important concepts; 3) try to associate the lecture notes with the material text; 4) asking yourself questions and making up questions from the notes.
Many students face at least one important test in their life. And if that particular student is one of the many that experience test anxiety, this can affect the students test scores. Test anxiety can be caused by the lack of preparation by the student, but it could be caused by the fear of failure as well. Students have so much resting on college and their ability to do well, such as a good paying job to be able to support themselves. Test anxiety causes nausea, light-headedness, and it could even cause the student to have a panic attack. Students that have severe test anxiety do not have a fair advantage (ADAA,
Test Anxiety . (n.d.). KidsHealth - the Web's most visited site about children's health. Retrieved December 4, 2010, from http://kidshealth.org/teen/school_jobs/school/test_anxiety.html
The presented tips were: a student must be prepared for the test by reading the material prior it, during a test the student must remain calm and positive and target simple questions before moving to challenging questions, and finally to write down all memorized facts on the back of the test to aid memory recollection of known information. Additionally, the student was persuaded not spend too much time on one question, because this practice could take time away from other questions that have higher grade value and increase anxiety. Module two reviewed a variety of study skills that if followed can help the student to have a successful study day and absorb most of the material revised. Some of the suggestions were: to pick a quiet study area and to plan ahead the study day, not procrastinate studying and to
Before taking an exam or going to an important meeting, people usually feel a certain discomfort or uneasiness. This discomfort is a normal human emotion called anxiety. Nevertheless, if the anxiety a person feels affects his capability to live and follow a normal life, this might be elevated to an anxiety disorder. A serious mental disorder, an anxiety disorder is centred on constant fear, worry and anxiety. Obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, post-traumatic disorder, social anxiety disorder generalized anxiety disorder and specific phobias are classifications of anxiety disorders. There are many anxiety disorder tests available especially online that helps screen and determine if a person has an anxiety disorder.
Many students suffer from anxiety right before a math test. Some students even become agitated whilst they are in the middle of their test, whether it be because of time shortages or lack of understanding. However, by enhancing your studying skills, prioritization skills and judgement calls, any math test becomes an easy task. Students who feel anxious about tests should not panic when it comes to taking math tests suggesting that with proper preparation, any math test can be aced.
Anxiety can often be viewed as a fear that someone experiences when they feel something terrible is about to happen and seeing no way out of the situation, whether thinking in the past, present, or future. Their are many different ways to cope with anxiety through methods like psychotherapeutic medication and psychotherapy. Anxiety often causes more trouble to a situation or thought and furthers anxiety so it is important to realize that anxiety can often be treated as long as we are willing to understand it’s effect human beings. Ghinassi, Winning, Starcevic, and Vladan discuss what anxiety is, where it comes from, and various methods of coping with anxiety through their books.
Anxiety can present a significant challenge in the classroom. It can take many different forms depending on its source. Determining why a child is suffering from anxiety is the first step in making sufficient accommodations. Coping skills and other anxiety treatments may present a different set of obstacles in the classroom however, adapting the learning environment to meet the needs of the anxious child contributes to their overall academic success.
Anxiety results from the athlete’s perception that he/ she is not good enough for the particular situation, which will cause stress (Edward and Hardy). An early model that attempted to explain the relationship between arousal and performance was the ‘inverted- U hypothesis.’ It stated that when an athlete would become aroused he/ she would do well in the event of competition, but if the athlete became too aroused then performance would deteriorate.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Having anxiety is not a rarity when you are stressed. When you are stressed you tend to freak out and not knowing if you are doing something right as a teacher or a student. Most teachers would stress not knowing if they are doing a good job and not knowing if you could fix it or how to fix it if there is a problem in the first place. That is another reason why students should be able to grade their
A student can be extremely intelligence and excel on classwork and assignments that are given with time to complete them, but as soon as a test is placed in front of them and the clock begins to run all of their intelligence dissipates to nothing. They are unable to focus and can not perform to the best of their ability. Even after taking an ACT preparation course, Haley Jones, a freshman at Nebraska-Lincoln who suffers from test anxiety states, “The prep class wasn't enough because there was no information about test anxiety”(Traux). Although most people are generally nervous when they are about to take an exam, “test anxiety goes above and beyond basic nerves”(Lecocq).
That night my sister revealed to me that she also suffered from test anxiety at my age, she gave some helpful tips to help relieve my stress. After listening to my sister, I realized that she was right. I needed to take charge and not listen to the voice in my head. That night I got out all my study guides and reviewed went to sleep early, woke up and ate a good breakfast. I felt good that I was ready to get over my fear of taking a test.
Although a bit of competition is considered healthy, too much of it can be dangerous. Standardized testing increases rates on cheating amongst students, until they get caught, since all of them answer the same set of questions. Test anxiety, which is a psychological condition where individuals experience extreme distress can cause mind block in learning and hurt test performance. This is very common amongst students who take standardized tests. Also, when students receive low scores, they feel demotivated and discouraged to try harder because their scores are being compared to other students, and they are all being ranked against each other.
According to the article “Problems with Standardized Testing” by Jasmine Evans, standardized tests do not measure a student’s complete knowledge of a subject. She says in her article that tests do not measure a student’s full knowledge of a subject because by virtue of being multiple choice, they do not allow students to express themselves. Therefore, without students being able to express themselves on test, they cannot show their full knowledge of the subject. Many critics advocate for these assessments to be open ended. Another way that tests do not measure a student’s full knowledge is that if a student gets nervous and has test anxiety they will do worse because they will forget many important topics on the test....
An important question to address when attempting to identify effective study strategies and their relationship with academic performance is, “What are study skills?” The term “study skills” can be defined as proficiency in identifying, organizing, memorizing, and using information in order to succeed academically (Proctor, Prevatt, Adams, Hurst, & Petscher, 2006). Activities identified as study skills include “time management, setting appropriate goals, selecting an appropriate study environment, employing appropriate note-taking strategies, concentrating, selecting main ideas, self-testing, organization, and managing anxiety,” (Proctor et al., 2006). When studying, college students employ a variety of these study strategies that they believe
Try a cognitive shift. When experiencing anxiety, think positive and know that the feeling will pass just like the last.