Signup to our FREE newsletter
Home Articles Test anxiety Test Taking Tips for the Anxiety Prone

Test Taking Tips for the Anxiety Prone

Test Taking Tips for the Anxiety Prone PDF Print E-mail
User Rating: / 5
PoorBest 

Introduction

If you are prone to anxiety, test taking can be more of a traumatic experience for you than most. It is especially critical for you to develop a solid strategy for success in your upcoming test, and techniques to use if anxiety starts to get the better of you.

Tips

Be Prepared

Nothing beats anxiety like careful preparation! Making sure that you have allocated ample time to prepare will build confidence and help you in your upcoming test immeasurably. Try not to use negative self-talk or stress while studying, keep your mind clear and focused and limit distractions as much as possible.

Calm Yourself

Before the test, it will be useful for you to practice deep breathing from the diaphragm – this is a very effective calming technique and it can help you regain focus if you start to have an anxiety attack during your test. Breathe in and full your stomach to its fullest capacity, hold for a few seconds, then release. Don’t worry about looking silly, many of the students around you will be sweating profusely instead! 

Organize Your Work

Organizing yourself during your test will always be beneficial in timely completion of your test and will ensure that you have not missed out anything. Consider these tips for organizing your work during the test:

  • Another useful test taking tip is to take scratch paper with you, and write down everything you DO know when faced with a problem you don’t know how to solve. Often, when you put the pieces together, they will make sense to you.
  • Other tips include creating a separate outline for an essay test before attempting it, keeping a careful eye on the time, and making sure that you leave nothing blank.
  • Try to leave enough time at the end to check over all your answers carefully to eliminate any silly mistakes.
  • Also, make sure that you have written your name on the exam itself – which is a mistake many anxiety-ridden students make.