Anxiety Examination anxiety is a fairly common phenomenon that involves feelings of tension or uneasiness that occur before, during, or after an examination. Many people experience feelings of anxiety around examinations and find it helpful in some ways, as it can be motivating and create the pressure that is needed to stay focused on one’s performance. Examination nerves, worry, or fear of failure are normal for even the most talented student. However, stress of formal examination results in such high degrees of anxiety in some students that they are unable to perform at a level which matches the potential they have shown in less stressful classroom situations.
Examination stress has been characterised as “ evaluative apprehension ” or “ evaluative stress ” and produces debilitating behavioural, cognitive, and physiological effects no different from those produced by any other stressor. High stress can interfere with the student’s preparation, concentration, and performance. Examination stress can cause test anxiety which adversely affects test performance. Persons who are high in test anxiety tend to perceive evaluative situations as personally threatening; in test situations, they are often tense, apprehensive, nervous, and emotionally aroused.
Moreover, the negative self-centred cognitions which they experience distract their attention and interfere with concentration during examinations. High test anxious students respond to examination stress with intense emotional reactions, negative thoughts about themselves, feelings of inadequacy, helplessness, and loss of status and esteem that impair their performance. Generally, the high test anxious person instead of plunging into a task plunges inward, that is, either neglects or misinterprets informational cues that may be readily available to her/him, or experiences attentional blocks. While preparing for examinations, one must spend enough time for study, overview and weigh one’s strengths and weaknesses, discuss difficulties with teachers and classmates, plan a revision timetable, condense notes, space out revision periods, and most importantly on the examination day concentrate on staying calm.
exhaustion is seen in the signs of chronic fatigue, weakness and low energy. The mental exhaustion appears in the form of irritability, anxiety, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. This state of physical, emotional and psychological exhaustion