Almost every student feels anxious before exams. Some level of alertness actually improves performance — it sharpens focus and raises effort. But when anxiety moves from "helpful activation" to "taking over", it has the opposite effect: it narrows thinking, blocks recall, and makes the exam harder than it needs to be.
If you regularly find that you know more than your exam results show, anxiety is a likely cause. Here's how to address it.
What exam anxiety actually is
Exam anxiety is your nervous system treating an exam like a threat. It triggers the same fight-or-flight response as physical danger — which is why your heart races, your thoughts speed up, and you sometimes can't access information you clearly know.
Understanding this is useful because it means the anxiety itself is not evidence that you're unprepared or going to fail. It's a nervous system response, and it's manageable.
Before the exam
Prepare in a way that builds confidence, not just coverage
Anxiety is often fuelled by vague uncertainty. "I haven't covered everything" is more anxiety-provoking than "there are three specific topics I'm weak on." The more specific you are about what you know and don't know, the less the uncertainty has to work with.
Use practice papers. Replicate exam conditions. Getting used to the format removes one layer of the unknown.
Don't cram the night before
Last-minute cramming increases anxiety without meaningfully improving performance. The night before an exam, your performance is mostly determined already. What you can still affect is your mental state. Prioritise sleep. Eat. Wind down in the evening.
Have a pre-exam routine
Rituals reduce anxiety. Know what you're eating the morning of the exam. Know when you're leaving. Have your materials ready the night before. Removing small decisions and logistical uncertainty reduces the overall load on your nervous system.
During the exam
Breathe before you read anything
When you sit down and before you turn the paper over, take a few slow, deliberate breaths. This is not a cliché — slow breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system and measurably reduces physiological anxiety. It takes thirty seconds and it works.
Read the whole paper before you start
Seeing all the questions before you begin helps your brain start connecting what you know to what's being asked. It also means you won't spend too long on an early question and run out of time for later ones.
If your mind goes blank
Write something. Anything. Even the question back to yourself. The act of writing engages a different part of your brain and often unlocks the memory that felt inaccessible. Staring at a blank page while anxious keeps you stuck.
After repeated difficulties
If exam anxiety consistently and significantly affects your performance despite preparation, that's worth addressing with professional support. Your institution's counselling service can work with you on anxiety management in an educational context. In some cases, formal accommodations — extra time, separate rooms, alternative assessment formats — may be available for students with significant anxiety. Speak to your student disability or support services about what's possible.
You don't have to keep performing below your ability. There's support available for this specifically.
If anxiety is affecting more than just exams — if it's weighing on your daily life — please talk to someone. Your institution almost certainly has a counsellor or wellbeing advisor there for exactly this kind of situation. You don't have to manage it alone, and reaching out is always the right move.
