The term test anxiety usually refers to an excessive feeling of nervousness or anxiousness that an individual experiences while preparing for a large exam or actually taking a large exam. Test anxiety can be a major problem as it can easily interfere with an individual's ability to perform well on an exam. However, everyone feels some level of anxiousness while preparing for a large exam or taking a large exam, so it is important for an individual to be able to separate normal anxiety from the excessive amount an individual with test anxiety experiences.
Fortunately, there are certain signals that may suggest that an individual is too anxious about a particular exam. First, if an individual is having difficulty studying because he or she cannot seem to get started or everything seems to distract the individual, the individual may be too anxious about the exam. Second, if an individual feels a sense of panic because he or she believes that it is not possible for the individual to pass the exam, there is a good chance that the individual is too anxious about the exam. Third, if an individual has difficulty understanding, focusing on, or recalling information while taking an exam that he or she had no difficulty understanding or focusing on beforehand, the individual probably has test anxiety. The fourth sign that an individual should consider is that an individual that has more trouble answering the questions on an exam than he or she does on other assignments related to the same topic is probably suffering from test anxiety. Finally, if the individual feels physically ill while he or she is taking the exam because of stress, the individual is almost certainly too anxious about the exam and is suffering from test anxiety. Symptoms that an individual feels immediately before, during, and immediately after an exam, such as difficulty breathing, excessive sweating, headache, nausea, stomach discomfort, unexplained exhaustion, and other similar symptoms that are not part of another illness may be signs that an individual is becoming physically ill due to excessive anxiety.