If you regularly become excessively nervous before or during an important exam, you may have “testophobia”. It is mostly called “examinophobia” or “exam fever”.

It is a very common phenomenon among students especially when an important examination is at their door step. It is extremely disastrous as it affects them psychologically, socially, emotionally and cognitively.
In fact, even Albert Einstein suffered from exam fever, and Winston Churchill only managed to write his name when he was appearing for an entrance exam.

When I was in the 9th grade, I skipped my “Maths” paper by pretending to be unwell. Am I proud of it? No. I wish I hadn’t done that, I wish I’d mustered up the courage to at least take the exam, irrespective of its consequences. Why did I do this? Because my dad is a Math genius and the thought of disappointing him made my blood run cold.

Did you know 66% of students admitted that their parents pressurise them for better academic performance? The pressure from non-graduate parents was more compared to parents those were graduates and post graduates.
Although too much pressure is a bad thing, I believe that a little bit of coaxing can be a good thing, as it motivates the students to knuckle down and work hard. But let’s face it, exams can make our stress alarms go off, which can stop students from performing their best. Hence, it’s imperative to address it and get it back under control.

In most cases, exam stress is caused by the fear of failing an exam and it can also be caused by:

• Low motivation levels
• Lack of preparation and planning
• High expectations from others
• Competition from peers

Ways to help eliminate exam stress

Before an exam

• If you can concentrate well in the morning then do most of your studying before lunch, not late at night when you can’t concentrate. If you can study at night then study at later half of the day, but go to bed at a reasonable hour and get enough sleep.
• Try answering questions from past exam papers or you can also try explaining tricky answers to someone else to make sure you have understood it.
• Always ask for help if there are things you don’t understand, and especially if you are feeling, stressed out.
• On the day of the exam, avoid talking to friends who get stressed easily. You know the ones with cue cards outside of the exam hall, frantically trying to remember key dates and equations. They will do nothing for your stress levels.
• Write down everything you feel like you need to do and try and tick one thing off. Just the act of feeling like you are in control of your revision can help.
• Watch a film, a TV show, play cricket or listen to some music that makes you feel good.
• Drink some herbal tea or a hot chocolate. It’s a well known fact that hot drinks are known to soothe the soul (avoid too much caffeine though!).
• A shower or a bath can help relieve stress.

During an exam

• Students who panic in an exam should take deep breaths.
• If a question causes them to freeze, then they should move on to an easier question. Come back to the difficult question later.

After an exam

• Avoid the exam “post-mortem”. You don’t need to know how other people fared in the exam. You’ve done your best, you can’t go back and change your answers so the second you step out of the exam hall, focus on your next exam.

Always remember that scoring low marks or failing an exam is not the end of the world. Each time the going gets tough, I think of this quote I’d read long ago, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.’’