Test anxiety is experienced by most people when facing an important examination of any kind.
Your level of test anxiety will often correlate with how important it is to you that you pass the relevant exam.
Some level of anxiety about how well you will do in a test is both natural and necessary in order for you to do well and achieve your best possible result.
Anxiety prevents you from going out to play football when you know that you need to study for an important school exam, anxiety keeps you burning the midnight oil until the report due tomorrow on the Chairman's desk is fully completed and done.
Anxiety makes you read and re-read the important things you must know to pass an examination.
It is to be assumed that most people would not be sitting for a test at all if the outcome was not important to them at some level or another.
The outcome of school tests will determine to some extent one's options and pathways for the future.
The results of college or university tests may decide whether or not you can follow a chosen career.
For older people to fail the advanced age driving test can mean the end of their mobility and independence.
Test anxiety can arise because a person feels that they are unable to understand or to complete the tasks on which they will be tested.
For such people, extra tutoring, and more practice will often provide re-assurance.
This type of test anxiety can also encourage a person to head off in another direction, take a different course and find satisfaction, success and pleasure in quite a different field.
High levels of stress can be felt around exam time however by even the very highest achievers, people who already know enough to pass the exam, people who are capable of passing their exams with honors and distinctions.
The root causes of test anxiety are based more around the consequences of failure than the actual course content, and for some, regardless of their actual ability, which in some cases can be well above average, the fear of failing the test can be overwhelming.
Leading up to examinations, people will often try to cram everything about a given subject, going without food, proper sleep, rest or recreation in order to be ready for and pass the examination.
The entire focus of their life may be the forthcoming examination which may lead to them becoming overly stressed such that they may even have nightmares and dreams about arriving too late, or at the wrong place, to sit for the important examination.
Excessive anxiety about any test can also inhibit performance.
Students may fail to read the questions properly, misunderstand directions, or find that they cannot remember simple dates or formulae that they have rehearsed correctly for many weeks prior to the exam.
Athletes may stumble or start the course too early.
Driving test candidates may find that they make errors due to excessive nervousness.
Those attending at interviews may find that they cannot remember at all the questions and information that they intended to use, they may stutter, hesitate or find themselves completely unable to speak.
The student in the examination room might feel his mind go completely blank.
For those who experience extreme levels of test or performance anxiety, there is a need perhaps for them to modify their entire approach to the testing.
The idea that the test is not everything, and that life will still go on if you fail can often bring things back into a better perspective for a highly nervous and overwrought candidate in any type of examination.
Sound routines leading up to exams, with time for rest and recreation are helpful.
Accepting as reality the possibility of failure, with contingency plans available will in itself often be sufficient to reduce levels of stress to a point where optimum performance is possible.
Parents have a responsibility not to contribute to performance stress in their children.
And if in doubt that taking some time out will help you with your study, note that even the LORD made the universe in six days and rested on the seventh.
We would do well to emulate that.