Test Anxiety: How to Beat it

Test anxiety can make or break your SAT or ACT score. Period.

So how do you make sure your hard work doesn’t go to waste due to a test-day freakout?

I’m an expert standardized testing tutor to extremely high-achieving (and thus often extremely high-anxiety!) high schoolers. It’s my dang job to make sure my clients get through whatever roadblocks lie along the way to an excellent SAT/ACT score. That includes mental roadblocks. And today I’m going to share with you the key points I’ve learned about test anxiety: what it is, who gets it, and how to overcome it.

Whether you’re a high schooler or the parent of one, I invite you to join me in learning how to remove the internal barriers that can hurt external scores.

ARTICLE CONTENTS

1. Video version of this article

2. How mindset affects Digital SAT/ACT performance

3. What is Test Anxiety?

4. What kinds of students get Test Anxiety?

a. The Perfectionist

b. The “Slacker”

5. Root causes of Test Anxiety

6. Test Anxiety hack #1: Three points of contact

7. Conclusion

Watch this article as a video:

How mindset affects Digital SAT and ACT Performance

Elsewhere, my blog has discussed the foundations of SAT/ACT prep: having the right study plan, creating and sticking to a testing timeline so you get the high score you need (without burning out), developing clear ACT or SAT goals, and learning the actual content and strategies particular to those two exams.

But there’s one last can’t-miss element: mastering the mental game of test taking. You need to train your mind to work FOR you—and not against you—before you’re actually sitting in the hot seat. Once you’ve done so, you’ll have slayed one of the dragons that can lay waste to the scores of otherwise smart, prepared students—thus winning yourself a serious edge over the competition.

So this post (and the whole test anxiety series it’s part of) will reveal several of my favorite anxiety-melting hacks, exercises and tricks to conquer test anxiety…and snag the target SAT or ACT score you’ve earned!

Test Anxiety Definition

Please note: I am not a doctor. If you need medical or psychiatric help, please find the appropriate professional.

It would be pretty unusual if you didn’t feel at least a little nervous when you sat down in the testing center to take your first Digital SAT or ACT. A bit of jitters? A slightly elevated heart rate? These are not necessarily test anxiety.

Instead, test anxiety is: an extremely intense form of performance anxiety, often characterized by paralyzing feelings of fear, worry, or dread. Unfortunately, all of those negative emotions can sometimes manifest in physical symptoms, like a racing heart, sweaty palms, feeling sick to your stomach, or your brain going as blank as a Minnesota field after a snowstorm when trying to answer a type of question you’re sure you’ve studied for.

Who tends to get test anxiety?

Over the course of my 15+ year career as a test prep instructor, I’ve discovered that the students most prone to Test Anxiety typically fall into one of two categories: the “Perfectionists” and the “Slackers.”

Perfectionists and test-day nerves

The Perfectionists hold themselves to such an impossibly high standard that they can develop an overwhelming phobia of making mistakes. Students of this ilk tend, for internal or external reasons, to base a lot of their identity and self-worth in excellent grades, test scores, and other accomplishments. The result? They really beat themselves up when they don’t meet their own (or their parents’) criteria for excellence.

When all of the pressure and expectations come to a head on test day, the Perfectionist will often do that freak-out-and-freeze thing that deer do when a car is shining its bright white headlights at them on a road. Uh-oh. You can see why that’s not going to get great results.

For the Perfectionist, dealing with Test Anxiety is a mental game. One you CAN learn to win. I’ve helped many students do so over the years.

(Plus, there are side benefits: if you do this self-work now, you’ll also gain higher self-esteem and won’t spend nearly as much on therapy as your friends do ten years from now!)

Procrastinators and test anxiety

The Slackers/Procrastinators, by contrast, experience a strain of Test Anxiety that is justified in some ways—because they actually have shown up to test day less prepared than they could and should be. 

But even though there’s some material reality to the Slacker’s test anxiety—unlike the purely psychological ordeal of the Perfectionist—there’s a vicious cycle to the Slacker’s negative thought patterns that soon makes things even worse. After all, if you truly AREN’T prepared, DON’T have a thorough understanding of the test’s structure, sections, content, strategies, or goal—of COURSE you’ll have to deal with a negative internal monologue about how badly you’re going to flub it!

As you might guess, the Procrastinators are the opposite of the Perfectionists in some ways: rather than studying for five hours a day, seven days a week, the Slackers aren’t ready for the test because they kicked the can down the road when it comes to studying, waiting until the last minute to hit the books/hire a tutor (if they do so at all).

What drives someone to procrastinate this intensely? While I don’t myself fall into this category, I’ve had many students who did (before they developed a study strategy with me, that is). And I’ve noticed that they often don’t study early and often because they just don’t see the point. I mean, why put in all that work if they truly believe they won’t get a good score, or eventually get into the college they want to attend? That’s a waste of precious energy and time they’d rather spend on Snapchat or Halo.

A variation on this is when a Slacker avoids studying because they can’t see how the work of test prep brings them to a certain big-picture outcome they want. Problem sets and drills sound like a lot of extra work….and what’s the point in going through all of that? Life’s too short! You’re only young once!

But that brings us to the good news here: if Slackers can learn to connect the sometimes-tedious work of test prep with their long-term academic and career dreams, they can escape the toxic tendrils of negativity and get started on prep.

Root causes of test anxiety

If you Google this topic, you’ll find somewhat unsurprising answers to the question of what causes test anxiety:

• “Situational Causes” (you’ve only got a certain amount of time to complete the test; there’s tons of pressure!; you don’t know the content; poor study skills; lack of preparation; lack of control; you did poorly in the past; etc.); and 

• “Mental Causes” (worries over getting a bad score; fear of disappointing your parents or teachers; high expectations; self-worth that’s wrapped up in accomplishment; negative self-talk; putting too much pressure on a single performance; etc.)

But if we contemplate further, it turns out that virtually all of these reasons can be placed under two big, umbrella reasons: 

1. Test anxiety is caused by lack of preparation

2. Test anxiety is caused by mental noise or chatter

… which—how convenient for us!—correlate to the two main types of students who typically suffer from Test Anxiety in the first place! (Don’t worry—I’ve given you strategies for tackling both root causes in this Test Anxiety blog post series.)

And if we want to take our analysis one step further (because, well, that’s my job as an SAT/ACT wizard!), the reasons for procrastination and under-preparedness are ALSO psychological. It’s the Slacker telling herself why the effort isn’t worth the reward because she DOESN’T see the significance of the test—AGAIN, a matter of self-talk and mental buzz. And the Perfectionist is ALSO facing down some major villains in his own mind: mainly, the stories he tells himself about the irreversibility and larger-than-life importance of the test. 

So really, the Perfectionist and the Slacker are two sides of the “Significance” coin. The Slacker doesn’t see the significance of the test for her personally, while the Perfectionist sees nothing BUT the significance—and is thus laid flat by anxiety. (And, interestingly enough, I’ve found that some Slackers are actually secret Perfectionists—they feel SO daunted by the significance of the test that they don’t even know where to begin trying.)

And where is all this “Significance” or “lack of Significance” coming from? Why, the stories you tell yourself in your head—i.e. your mental chatter or your “self talk.”

What I mean by mental chatter is: if you let your mind go blank for a moment and don’t hear that running commentary you’re having silently in your head about what you’re reading right now—yeah, THAT commentary right there!—there would be no “story.” There would be no chatter. 

And when you clear your mind of chatter, an incredible thing happens: you become what we in the spiritual community refer to as “present.” You can then use your mind to do what it’s SUPPOSED to do: proactively THINK and solve problems—like the ones on the Digital SAT and ACT! And when your mind is uncluttered and only directed at the test questions at hand, you tend to get them right. And get WOWZA scores, while you’re at it.

But HOW do we clear your mind of all that clutter? There are MANY ways, and different ones work for different people. (That’s why this post is just one of several I’ve published about Test Anxiety.) And today, I’m going to share just one of my favorite strategies.

Test Anxiety Hack: Three points of contact

By “three points of contact,” I mean that you’re going to bring your attention to three different physical sensations in your body, all at once, and hold your focus there for three deep breaths. 

For instance, here are three I notice at this very moment:

1. The light weight of the ring on my right pointer finger as I type out this post;

2. The slight sensation of the air leaving and entering my left nostril as I breathe;

3. The feeling of my right foot resting on the floor.

For you, maybe your three points of contact are: 

1. The pressure of the chair you’re sitting on against your left thigh;

2. The feeling of your ankles crossed over the other;

3. The softness of your sweater where it meets the nape of your neck.

Whatever your three points of contact are, find them, and notice ALL THREE at the SAME TIME while you take in THREE DEEP BREATHS. (I like to do this with my eyes closed, but you don’t have to.)

Something kind of amazing will happen: if you stay focused on ONLY those three points of contact and on ALL of those three points of contact at the same time, the mental chatter will soften or even disappear entirely, at least for a spell.

Make it a habit to do this before you start a test section or a study session; it only costs you about ten seconds. Soon, this ritual will become second nature, and you’ll win more and more precious mental space for your brain—which brings clarity. And focus. And comprehension, retention…and yes, a higher number of points!

And that’s what I’m in the business of getting you, friend.

Conclusion

To some, test anxiety might sound like a woo-woo, abstract concept—but the proof is in the pudding: I’ve seen many students noticeably improve their scores just by calming their test-day nerves.

The type of pointer outlined in this post is why my private students (and their parents) often give me feedback like, “you offer a fantastic service that includes assessment and coaching, which goes way beyond what a traditional tutor does.” (A real email I received from a client!) If you want that level of personal attention and expert skill to help get you YOUR target SAT or ACT test score, contact me here.

OR, if private tutoring doesn’t fit your budget or study style, never fear! My online course will let you proceed at your own pace:

This bingeable, rewatchable video class will help you triumph over your test anxiety once and for all. I walk you through over a DOZEN tricks and strategies for keeping calm and testing on. If you liked the tip that today’s post had to offer, just imagine the kind of score you can achieve with buckets MORE of them.