Some students experience only mild symptoms of test anxiety and are still able to do fairly well on exams.

They may belittle and berate themselves for their symptoms and the resulting poor performance on exams.

How Prevalent Is Test Anxiety?

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Anxiety disorders tend to be quite common.

Other potential causes of test anxiety include:

Test anxiety can also feed upon itself.

Students may become fearful of experiencing anxiety symptoms, so they then become even more fearful of testing situations.

Students withlearning disabilitiesare also more likely to experience test anxiety.

Helping students to build confidence in their test-taking ability can also be helpful.

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Nelson JM, Harwood H. Learning disabilities and anxiety: a meta-analysis.

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National Institute of Mental Health.Statistics: Any anxiety disorder.

Nelson, JM & Harwood, H.Learning disabilities and anxiety: A meta-analysis.Journal of Learning Disabilities.

2010; 44(1): 3-17. doi: 10.1177/0022219409359939.