Tests are an essential component of probably any math class you will ever take. But tests are not neutral. You can have good days and bad days, you can be under-prepared and over-prepared. You can do better than expected or bomb the test even though the night before you explained the material to the guy who got a better score. Clearly being well prepared and knowing the material is necessary to do well on a test, but it is unfortunately not always sufficient. Plenty of students describe taking test and particularly math tests as an unpleasant experience at best. And plenty of students fare worse than they probably should.

There is no magic pill to take that will make you like tests and always make you get the score you deserve. But you are not alone, and you can fight the beast. It is no coincidence that "test anxiety" and "math anxiety" are terms used in psychology. These are real-life experiences of thousands of students around the country. Maybe reading about other people's experiences and some advice about how to deal with this can help you feel better about yourself, and do better on exams. It is possible to do something about this, and you can work on that. Of course there are never any guarantees, but if test anxiety is and has been a real problem for you, then doing nothing about it is not going to fix the problem.

Feel free to talk to me about these issues, or check out some of the links to sites that address issues related to test preparation, test anxiety and specifically math anxiety.

There are 2 books about math anxiety by Sheila Tobias. One is "Succeed with Math: every student's guide to conquering math anxiety" and the other "Overcoming math anxiety". I have not read them, but I have read   good things about them. There are copies of each book at the Science library.

Copyright © 1997-2008 by Frank Bäuerle, Ph.D., UC Santa Cruz.
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Last updated: April 08, 2008.