Test Anxiety & its signs: What is it and how to identify it?

A Quick Guide

Test anxiety is a fear of failure that manifests as physiological overarousal, worry, cognitive difficulties, behavioral symptoms, and emotional distress. It can significantly impact academic performance. Seeking professional help is important for an accurate diagnosis and support.

Introduction

Do you think you have test anxiety? Consider the following scenario and see if you can relate to it.

Javed is an 18-year-old college student. He is committed to getting admission to one of the top medical schools. Every day he studies extra hard to get an impressive academic record so that he can become a doctor one day. He is also the first one in his family to come this far in his education. Accordingly, his family expects a lot from him. However, Javed has a problem.

Every time before an important test, he gets super nervous. He experiences severe anxiety, can’t sleep, and has physical symptoms e.g. disturbed digestion, loss of appetite, sweating, etc. Right before the exam, his emotions are extreme fear and worry. Likewise, he often thinks of catastrophizing thoughts like ‘I will definitely fail the exam’, ‘My parents will be disappointed in me’, ‘I don’t remember what I studied’ or ‘I am not smart enough’ etc.

When he gets the exam sheet, he immediately focuses on questions that seem hard. This adds to his anxiety and confirms his fears. Due to this, his hands start to shake, he barely finishes the exam and his grades suffer. Despite being smart and studying hard, Javed is unable to perform well on tests.

If Javed’s experience seems relatable to you, chances are you may be experiencing test anxiety.

What is test anxiety?

Test anxiety is often referred to as evaluation anxiety, situational anxiety, or anticipatory anxiety. It can be described as the fear of failure. It brings with it physiological arousal, somatic symptoms, worry, catastrophizing thoughts, and tension before or during a test. People with test anxiety experience high stress and discomfort in performance-based situations. Due to this, their learning and overall academic performance get severely affected. Some students even drop out of school due to this.

Signs of test anxiety

1. Physiological overarousal 

This includes headaches, stomach aches, nausea, diarrhea, excessive sweating, shortness of breath, light-headedness or fainting, rapid heartbeat, and dry mouth. Sometimes, this can also lead to panic attacks.

Note: Read more about panic attacks in this article.

2. Worry and dread 

This includes catastrophic thoughts, a sense of doom, fear of failure, feeling like one is not good enough, negative self-comparison with others, etc.

3. Cognitive symptoms 

Such symptoms involve difficulty in concentration, “going blank” confusion, and poor organization of mental thoughts.

4. Behavioral symptoms

Due to anxiety, some students may show a freeze response. While others may excessively fidget during the test, bite nails or pencils, tapping feet, or even make excuses to avoid the test at the last moment.

5. Emotional symptoms

Text anxiety brings fear, nervousness, crying, low self-esteem, low mood, anger, and feelings of hopelessness, and helplessness in the person.

The severity of the test anxiety symptoms

The severity of the symptoms may vary across students. While some may experience moderate symptoms and are able to tolerate the symptoms to give a satisfactory performance on the test. Whereas, others may have severe symptoms, and be unable to perform well, or even complete the test. For example, have a panic attack in the middle of the test.  

Is test anxiety a mental disorder?

Many people with test anxiety question whether they have a mental disorder based on the intensity of their experience. According to DSM-V, test anxiety may be diagnosed as social phobia. This refers to the persistent fear of being evaluated or judged in social situations.

Note: To understand more about social phobia, read our article on The cycle of social phobia: What keeps it in a loop?

Text anxiety: Social phobia-performance-based disorder

If a person only fears performance or evaluation-based situations and can function normally in other social situations, the diagnosis may be social phobia-performance type. However, do not try to self-diagnose yourself. The above diagnosis may only be given by a trained mental health professional. Furthermore, the label does not make any difference, nor does it discount your experience. Since having test anxiety does not mean you are crazy. As it is natural to feel anxious in evaluative situations.

If you think you experience test anxiety more intensely than others, read the article: How to Cope with Test Anxiety: 9 strategies for effective management. Similarly, to understand more about test anxiety; read The causes of test anxiety and its cycle: The underlying process