Have test anxiety? How Did that Happen & What to Do abou

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One of the most debilitating factors impacting your performance is any iota of stress. While a smidgin of stress can be mistaken for excitement and may even help you focus (think of it as a 'natural' ritilin'). If you know anything about classic psychology experiments, you might know about B.F. Skinner's experiment with Pigeons, called 'Superstition and the Pigeon.' And you might wonder what this has to do with retaking the GMAT, GRE or any high stakes test, but actually, it's quite pertinent.

Briefly, Skinner discovered that accidental reinforcement of a response can lead to superstitious, or in our case, repetitive behavior. Skinner demonstrated the conditioning of such behavior using pigeons. He set a food dispenser to deliver food to these birds in an operant chamber at fixed time intervals. The pigeons associated whatever behavior they were engaging in at the time the food was dispensed with the delivery of the food. The likelihood of the pigeons behaviors steadily increased. Some of the birds actually developed a 'routine', like a dancing routine seeming to indicate that if they did this, food would become appear. One pigeon believed that by turning around in the cage twice or three times counter-clockwise between being fed. By the end of the study, three quarters of the birds had become "superstitious."
Humans exhibit similar behavior to our feathered friends, for example, when we avoid 'cracks' in the sidewalk, grates in a street, or walking under ladders. But superstition also appears to have an effect on how we take tests.
For the test taker, getting stressed or nervous prior to a test produces the same superstitious behavior - - need to wear your 'testing shirt', carry your 'rabbit's foot' or go through some kind of process prior to taking a test is included in this. These, however, we recognize as superstitious behavior, but with anxiety it's more nefarious.
If you think back to when you first took a test, if you felt a little nervous, but still did ok, even great, you run the risk of having or increasing your stress, incrementally, each time you take the test, unless you disrupt the pattern through behavior modification. Meaning: your unconscious mind mistakes your doing well on a test as a result of that anxiety, and thinks you might want some more of that special sauce each time you take a test. For real. Unless you break this habit - and indicate to your unconscious mind that you really want the great performance without the stress and anxiety, it will often increase and can end up as full blown anxiety, even deer in head lights syndrome in front of the computer screen.

The silver lining to this is that the easiest thing to deal with improving your GMAT score is getting rid of test anxiety. There are many solutions and finding one right for you is quick and easy.
One easy way to mask the stress is walk yourself through going to the test center, and sitting through the test, in your imagination. Go through it in as many details as possible, but contrary to your feeling nervous, 'revise' your history to your feeling great and in control. Use whatever cues you automatically have when you 'revisit' some aspect of your past. For some people, this may mean you see it like a movie. For others, you might just go through an emotional-feeling like experience, and others might have a soundtrack. However it is you recall events, become the conductor and imagine the situation on your terms: the way YOU'D like the experience to go. Do this up until the end where you see the score in front of you! Don't be shy here: project what score you are aiming for. All the research points to this kind of visualization being potent and useful. And there are more where those came from.

In support of this practice, you may have heard of the experiment done at University of Chicago with Basketball players. Judd Blaslotto, PhD split players into three groups and tested each group on how many free throws they could make. After this, he had the first group practice free throws every day for an hour."¨"¨The second group just visualized themselves making free throws."¨"¨The third group did nothing. After 30 days, he tested them again.
The first group improved by 24%."¨"¨The second group improved by 23% without touching a basketball, and predictably, the third group did not improve which was expected. Dr. Blaslotto, explained, "As your brain conceives of an act, it generates impulses that prompt neurons to perform the movement being imagined." These neural pathways in the brain program your body's emotional and physical reaction/actions as if you actually performed the visualized activity.
If you're finding that 'Breathing' exercises alone do not do the trick: dig deeper for some techniques to be a game changer when it comes to test anxiety. I've contributed a bunch here, the first half of our book has a section dedicated to getting in the zone when taking a high stakes test. There are so many options to get out of your own way!
Bara Sapir, MA, CHt, CNLP
Founder/CEO City Test Prep
Maximize your Score, Minimize your Stress!
GMAT Badass and Test Anxiety Relief Expert
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