Test Anxiety - Part I
What is test anxiety?
It’s a feeling of nervousness either while you are preparing for, or taking an exam. Seems to be caused by expectations or thoughts about what is likely to happen. Lead to negative thinking which can disable you from actually doing well (self-fulfilling prophecy)
A test is an examination or a trial to determine one’s knowledge.
Anxiety is the mind's natural response to an unknown, but anticipated danger. When no effective response to the anticipated danger is possible, or known, anxiety itself becomes the danger since it leads to physical debilitation and psychological immobilization. An evaluation by a psychotherapist is recommended when there are symptoms from three of the following four categories.
1. Motor Tension: shakiness, jitteriness, jumpiness, trembling, tension, muscle aches, fatigability, inability to relax, eyelid twitch, furrowed brow, strained face, fidgeting, restlessness, being easily startled.
2. Autonomic Hyperactivity: sweating, heart pounding or racing, cold, clammy hands, dry mouth, dizziness, light-headedness, paresthesias (tingling in hands or feet), upset stomach, hot or cold spells, frequent urination, diarrhea, discomfort in the pit of the stomach, lump in the throat, flushing, pallor, high resting pulse and respiration rate.
3. Apprehensive Expectation: anxiety, worry, fear, obsessive thinking, and anticipation of misfortune to self or others.
4. Vigilance And Scanning: hyperattentiveness resulting in distractibility, difficulty in concentrating, insomnia, feeling "on edge," irritability, impatience.
Normally Tests are:
No texts – must memorize the information
Stressful – more stressful situation than studying
Time pressure – studying at relaxed pace is completely different from taking a timed test.
What causes test anxiety?
- Poor study habits
- Cramming
- Failure to organize material
- Negative thinking/negative self image
- Research shows that the self-talk of test anxious students almost, always tends to be negative and self-defeating.
- “Everyone in this class is smarter and faster than I am.”
- “I always mess up on tests”
- “If I don’t do well on this exam, then I’ll flunk the course.”
- “These are trick questions.”
- “This is a weed-out course”
- Comparing yourself to friends/classmates/parents in their performance
- Fear of failure (perfectionist)
- Past class pass rates
Effects of test anxiety
- Decreases the size of working memory (retrieving key words and concepts)
- Difficulty reading and understanding questions
- Difficulty organizing thoughts
- Mental blocks (remembering the correct answers as soon as the exam is over)
- Apprehension, uneasiness, upset, and self-doubt
Poor study habits DO NOT cause test anxiety?