Expert: How To Overcome Test Anxiety On The GMAT & GRE

If you suffer from test anxiety on the GMAT or GRE, you’re not alone. Roughly ⅓ of all students experience test anxiety, and the rate appears to be substantially higher among high achievers such as medical students and MBA applicants.

If you’re one of the many test-takers who struggles with test-day jitters, here are some solutions that might help.

Reduce Test Anxiety Via Better GMAT Or GRE Test Preparation

The most obvious way to diminish test anxiety is to ensure that you feel thoroughly prepared for the exam. If you know that you haven’t put in the work, you can expect to feel unprepared on test day, and this can cause a spike in your anxiety. Before you step into the exam room, you should ideally have several official GMAT or GRE practice tests under your belt, with scores comfortably in your target range.

Here’s the bad news: plenty of GMAT and GRE students work their butts off, but still feel anxious on test day. So while preparing for the exam is one piece of the puzzle, it may not be enough on its own to feel calm and confident on the actual exam, especially if your test anxiety is relatively severe.

Work With A Mental Performance Coach For Test Anxiety

An expert in performance psychology can help you find your unique, personal recipe for reducing test anxiety. Although psychology-based performance coaching is still somewhat rare in the world of standardized test tutoring, elite athletes and executives have received mental skills training from performance psychologists for decades.

Athletes and performers of any type — including GMAT and GRE test-takers — face remarkably similar challenges. If you’ve poured their heart and soul into preparations for a specific, high-stakes event – such as an exam, a key sports match, or an important presentation – it’s natural to feel anxious. You could even say that it’s your body’s way of reminding you that you care.

This is where a mental performance coach comes in. They can help you reinterpret the pressure and anxiety in a positive way, so that it becomes an asset instead of a hindrance. They can also help you develop energy management strategies so that when you experience pressure, you’re prepared with breathing, relaxation, “pre-game”, and “reset” strategies that can help you refocus on the question in front of you.

Practice Mindfulness To Reduce Test Anxiety

Another tool that can be effective against test anxiety is mindfulness meditation. When you meditate, you train your brain to let go of certain thoughts by focusing on something neutral and consistent, such as your breath.

This is a valuable skill if you find yourself distracted by anxious thoughts during the GRE or GMAT. Through daily practice, you can learn to turn your attention away from these distracting thoughts, and back to answering the question in front of you.

A growing body of evidence connects meditation to improved exam performance, partly because meditation is so effective at reducing test anxiety. In this study, for example, students improved by roughly 16 percentile points on the GRE after just two weeks of mindfulness meditation.

Improve Your Sleep, Nutrition, And Exercise Habits

This might sound obvious, but improvements in your overall health can help you approach your exam in a more relaxed and focused frame of mind.

Some symptoms of anxiety occur when your body is too amped up for the task at hand. One way to reduce these symptoms is to get regular exercise. Make it a goal to elevate your heart rate every day, even for just a short period of time. Doing this will allow your body to expend excess energy so it doesn’t interfere with your test-taking.

Nutrition can also play a role in reducing anxiety. Do your dietary habits leave you satiated and energized? Are you able to maintain a consistent level of energy throughout the day? Or do you rely on caffeine or sugar to perk yourself up? Embracing a balanced diet can help you smooth out your energy levels, which can help keep your anxiety check.

In addition, adequate sleep is imperative for showing up relaxed and refreshed on test day. Poor or inadequate sleep leaves your body and mind feeling stressed out, and you’ll have less capacity to regulate your anxiety symptoms if you’re chronically behind on sleep.

Charles Bibilos has served as a GMAT and GRE tutor since 2001, and has achieved perfect scores on both exams. His company, GMAT Ninja, specializes in online GMAT and GRE tutoring and coaching to combat test anxiety.