Let's Talk About Test Anxiety

Test anxiety is a term used to describe stress experienced before an exam that rises to a heightened level of anxiousness and self-doubt. Test anxiety is a type of performance anxiety that can feel overwhelming and is serious enough to impact your performance on the exam. Stress before an exam is normal. In fact, normal stress before an exam is triggering your sympathetic nervous system and preparing you to act. This can improve brain function in the short-term, keep you focused on the task, and help you perform at your best.

If your parasympathetic nervous system doesn’t kick in, you can remain in a heightened state of stress too long, or even experience a panic attack. Sensations experienced during panic attacks include trouble breathing normally, shaking hands, feeling faint or nauseous, feeling like you are having a heart attack or that you are choking. These sensations can make it impossible to focus on the exam.

Even if your stress is not rising to the level of panic attack, you may still find your stress is difficult to manage before an exam. You might feel like you’ve entered a freeze, flight, or fight state. I find freezing to be the most common defensive reaction in the exam setting. I think we’ve all experienced reading an exam question and feeling our minds go completely blank.

If this happens to you frequently, I encourage you to talk to a professional counselor. Not only will they be able to provide strategies for managing the anxiety, but they may also be able to identify an underlying cause of the anxiety. If this is happening to you for the first time in law school, please know you are not alone. The higher-stakes testing environment, pressure placed on law school final exams for overall course grades, and breadth of subject matter make law school exams different than other exams. It is incredibly common for law students to feel exam stress or test anxiety for the first time in their academic history.

What should you do if you are feeling extreme stress during an exam?

Breathe. First, try closing your eyes and taking some long, deep breaths. If this helps, focus on your senses. Identify five things you can see, hear, and touch at your seat. Instead of trying to focus on the exam questions, think of one major concept you remember from the course generally. Take a moment to write down a few rules you remember related to that concept. This is often enough to get out of the freeze and move forward with the exam.

If this does not work, you can’t breathe normally, or taking deep breaths is adding to the stress, try leaving the testing room for a few minutes. Take a short walk. If this is not helping, and you begin to experience symptoms of a panic attack, ask for help. Go to the appropriate person on your campus who assists with exam emergencies. According to Scientific American, panic attacks “usually begin abruptly, reach their peak within 10 minutes and end within half an hour.” You may be able to work through the episode and still complete your exam successfully. Suffering in the exam room usually does not help the situation. So, get the support you need.

Good luck on exams and remember that taking care of your health during the finals period is critical to exam performance.

(Ashley Cetnar)