How to Hack Your Test Anxiety
Follow these 4 steps to overcome test anxiety, raise your test scores, and enjoy your academic life!
1 - Challenge Anxious Thoughts
Anxious thoughts can be overwhelming and make you feel powerless - especially when you are facing a high-stakes exam. But you can stop harmful thoughts in their tracks by writing them down and challenging them.
How does that thought make you feel? Is it helpful or hurtful? Does it contain thinking errors like
fortune-telling (“I’m going to fail.”)
catastrophizing (“If I fail, my life is ruined.”)
labeling (I’m a bad test taker”)
mind-reading (“Everyone thinks I’m stupid.”)
Confront anxiety by forcing a conversation with the more rational, coping, confident side of your brain.
Use this free, fillable worksheet to get started.
2 - Choose Helpful Thoughts
Our thoughts are tools. You have the power to choose the right tools for the job.
For example, when faced with a multiple choice question, you may think, “I’m going to get this wrong because I have no idea what this answer is.” That is an unhelpful thought. Here are some helpful thoughts instead:
“I understand what the question is asking.”
“The correct answer is here.”
“I can find wrong answers.”
Pro Tip: Multiple choice questions are as much about ruling out wrong answers as they are choosing the right answer.
3 - Develop Your Action Plan
Although there a lot of uncomfortable symptoms of test anxiety, our behaviors - the actions we take to avoid anxiety - are what harm us most.
procrastinating instead of preparing
putting off scheduling the exam
rushing and skipping questions
You can short-circuit these behaviors by having a plan. When it comes to test anxiety and anxiety in general, telling your brain to do something (“Follow these 4 steps on every question.”) is much more effective than telling it not to do something (“Don’t be anxious.”).
Plan how you are going to approach each section and question before test day. For example, if you are in medical school and you’re facing USMLE Step 1, use this anxiety-resistant strategy on every multiple choice question, every time.
Rehearse your strategy ahead of time by taking full-length practice tests, so even if your heart is racing and test anxiety is throwing all sorts of unhelpful thoughts your way, you will have the confidence to execute your plan when it matters most.
4 - Deploy Your Plan
When you take your practice exams, make sure the environment and conditions are as close to the real test as possible. For example, don't have your phone with you if you will not be allowed to have it on test day.
Practice tests aren’t just useful in predicting your score, they are invaluable to overcoming test anxiety.
Practice tests:
reduce surprises and confusion that can trigger anxiety
give you a chance to practice your anxiety-resistant strategies
reduce anxiety by having a full rep of a real life simulation