Anxiety is the physiological and psychological response to an imaginary danger . It's the racing heart, sweaty palms, sense of threat, and urge to flee that someone experiences when confronted by the possibility of being confronted by a bear while walking through the woods. In other words, test anxiety is centered not in the test but in the test- taker's mind. It's natural to worry about whether you will do well on a test. Indeed, some degree of pre-test anxiety is good, for it focuses the mind on the task at hand and creates psychological and psychological arousal to meet the challenge.
Problems arise, however, when the anxiety grows to the point of harming performance.
And besides, it makes your friends jealous. If I do poorly in the class, I won't get into law school. If I don't get into law, school, I'll be a failure and die of shame. I didn't study and I don't know this material. Return to the top of the page Solutions to Test Anxiety Acknowledge that you get nervous before tests and try to become aware of the roots of your test anxiety.