Managing Test Anxiety
Turn negatives into positives
Most students approach standardized tests the same way they study for a test in school: they think it’s all about mastering the content. They think if they just take enough practice tests and become familiar with the types of questions they should expect, that they’ll be able to ace the real test.
The problem is, standardized tests don’t feel like an every day test in school. And they certainly don’t feel like a practice test. For better or worse, educational institutions have put an enormous weight on test scores. It’s not an exaggeration to say that those few hours can determine the trajectory of people’s entire career.
Every person is different, so there’s no one perfect solution that will work across the board. Many, possibly even most, people will experience some degree of anxiety on test day, no matter how much they try to manage it. But here are some tips to help your students avoid a downward spiral of anxious thoughts on test day:
Turn negatives into positives
It sounds simple. But this is the #1 piece of advice that has worked with my test prep students. Everyone goes into the test imagining everything that could go wrong: I could miss penciling in a bubble, shifting my answers down and making me miss a bunch of questions. Some kid could be coughing next to me distracting me the whole time. I could feel nauseous and have to run out to the bathroom in the middle of a section.
By all means, thinking through possible negative scenarios can serve as a form of exposure therapy. A “hoping for the best, but ready for the worst” attitude does calm many people down. But it’s a mistake to dwell on those negative thoughts.
I encourage my students to frame the question differently: what could go right on test day? In other words, what are some aspects unique to test day that could boost my performance? I’ll be in a quiet room instead of my loud house. I’ll be taking the test when I have more energy in the morning, unlike the practice tests I took after a long day of school/work. Because this is the real test, I’ll be extra careful to avoid careless mistakes, unlike some practice tests where I let myself get lazy.
When I was studying for the LSAT, I was working a full-time job while raising my 3 year old son and my newborn daughter. Our apartment was loud and chaotic, but I had no other place to study because I needed to be there to help with the kids. By the time they were in bed, I was exhausted from a long day of work.
So I went into my test thinking: every practice test I’ve taken so far has had an asterisk on it. Finally, I’ll be in the right environment to ace this test. And what happened? I scored higher on the real test than on any practice test I’d ever taken. And I’ve seen many of my students do the same thing.
Register for a second test date in the future to take pressure off the first test
This is another tactic that really works. If there’s an opportunity for your student to register for another test date in the future, have them register for that second test before they take the first one.
For example, if your student plans on taking the March 14, 2020 SAT, they’ll get their results back on March 27th, in time for the April 3 deadline to register for the May test. But even though they know the May test is a possibility, it will make a real mindset difference on the March test if they register for that May test now. Knowing they have another shot at the test allows them to test without fear. When students lower their expectations about the first test, they’re often pleasantly surprised that those lowered expectations are exactly what they needed to hit the kind of score they were hoping for.
Stop to take a few deep breaths at the beginning of each section and whenever panic starts creeping in
Shout-out to Nathan Fox and Ben Olson of the Thinking LSAT podcast for making me a believer on this tip. When each test section starts, test-takers’ first instinct is to start working immediately. Your students will hear a buzz of nervous energy fill the room as those around them frantically start scribbling notes and flipping through the test book pages.
But there’s no reason to get caught up in their race! The second your students start thinking about other people in the room, they’re in trouble. They need to focus only on their own test. The best way they can do that is to take 15–30 seconds at the beginning of each test section to take a few deep breaths, close their eyes, and not start on the test. This reminds them of 2 things:
- They don’t care how fast others are going. The student next to them flying through the first section could be getting every question wrong.
- They’re going to crush this test. They don’t need to worry about burning 15–30 seconds because they’re so confident in their abilities.
Same thing applies whenever they feel a sense of panic setting in. Maybe they’re going too slow in the section and are now thinking about the clock. Or they’re not convinced they understood a reading passage and so now they’re worried they missed a bunch of questions.
To stop the downward spiral of negative thoughts, they need to nip the problem in the bud. The spiral is hard to escape from because panic is distracting, which means you spend time thinking about how you’re panicking, which means you panic more because you know the clock dwindling, and repeat until people are left frozen in place.
Instead, tell your students to take 15–30 seconds as soon as they feel that panic creeping in. Then when they open their eyes, they’re going to look at whatever they were working on with a new perspective and a fresh set of eyes. Like a crossword puzzle where you’re stuck in place but when you walk away and come back you can suddenly solve 5 words, sometimes we just need a second to stop looking at the test and regroup.
Avoid burnout at all costs
There’s one pattern I’ve seen hold true across all the standardized tests I’ve tutored: the students who tend to have the biggest test day dropoff due to anxiety are the students who were the most burnt out from the test. Maybe they’ve taken every single practice test 3 times. Or they’ve spent 4–5 hours per day drilling new questions and reviewing their mistakes.
I universally tell such students that their approach is a mistake. They can’t let the test consume their whole life! Because then they’re introducing another negative, incredibly distracting thought on test day: You’ve spent countless hours prepping for today. Don’t mess this up now.
It’s important for students to balance the test they’re taking with other interests and hobbies. For me, that meant working out. When I had a bad day for LSAT prep, I’d put down my books and go make sure to have a good workout. That way I didn’t end the day feeling like I didn’t accomplish anything. For others, it’s meditation, hiking, cooking, or anything that forces their mind to stop thinking about the test for a bit.
When students’ sole focus is on the test, it’s easy to get caught up in the “practice test slot machine:” take a practice test, get a score they’re not happy with, immediately take another test in the hopes of getting a better score. The problem is, because they’re distracted by their first negative performance, they again under-perform on the second test. They then repeat this cycle, burning through tests without ever properly reviewing them.
This is particularly harmful in the days leading up to the real test. You want to make your students go into the test on a high note. So if my student gets a new high score on a practice test a week out from test day, I’m not going to have her take another full test later that week! Because if she scores lower, she’ll be tempted to keep retaking until she scores better, a dangerous cycle as I’ve shown. Better to go in with the memory of the high score fresh in her mind and just drill individual questions in the few days leading up to the test.
