Management of Examination Anxiety

For most students, an approaching examination brings on a churning stomach and a degree of anxiety, because any situation that involves being evaluated on one's performance tends to provoke anxiety. A certain amount of anxiety is actually essential — it motivates a person and pushes them toward their best performance — but when anxiety rises too high, it becomes a genuine obstacle: a highly anxious person is so physiologically and emotionally aroused that they are unable to perform to the best of their real ability. Coping with an examination, like coping with any stressful situation, generally follows one of two broad strategies: monitoring (taking direct, effective action to deal with the stressful situation) or blunting (avoiding or softening the impact of the stressful situation) — though pure avoidance is neither realistic nor desirable when facing an actual exam. Useful monitoring strategies include preparing thoroughly and well in advance, and becoming familiar with the pattern of question papers and frequently asked questions, since this predictability itself reduces the stress the exam carries; rehearsing through a mock examination, whether with a friend's help or purely mentally, while visualising oneself sitting the exam calmly and passing successfully; inoculating oneself against stress, through repeated rehearsal and role-play, so that the real situation feels less unfamiliar and threatening when it actually arrives; practising positive thinking, by systematically listing the specific thoughts that cause worry and then addressing them rationally, one at a time, while consciously emphasising one's own strengths; and seeking support from friends, parents, teachers or seniors, since talking about a stressful situation to someone close often makes it feel more manageable and less overwhelming than it first seemed. Blunting-type techniques that can also genuinely help in …