Testing anxiety: a perspective

Since a lot of us talked about testing anxiety in our blogs but don't have a lot of experience with this ourselves, I decided to ask a friend of mine about her experience with testing anxiety.  She is my age and very successful academically and professionally.  She's currently holding down a job in her field of study and will finish her master's degree in the spring.  Although it wasn't her main focus, she did study Spanish during undergrad and studied abroad.  I asked her how testing anxiety affects her and what she does to mitigate those effects.  Her answer is copied and pasted here:

"For me confidence definitely plays a huge part in anxiety with tests. I don't think I necessarily get more things wrong, it doesn't necessarily affect my accuracy in responding. When it builds up, what's most affected is my ability to focus. I just either flip through the test a million and a half times or stare off or get up and leave. I just get super overwhelmed and shut down.

The two biggest things I've learned is really planning out how I will use my time during the test and when I start preparing for a big test. When I'm good (which is rare) I will start to study for exams about two weeks before daily. That way I can tell myself that I absolutely know the material and self doubt doesn't become a big issue during the test. Also, when we first get the test I go through and decide when I should get to certain parts or I do the biggest part first and give myself a time limit (If there are multiple choice and two essays and the exam is two hours long I may do the essays first and tell myself I should complete them in the first 45 minutes.) Learning to time manage during the test is the most important. Breaking it into sections and thinking about that amount of time rather than the test as a whole makes it considerably less overwhelming. "

I asked her when she figured out those strategies for herself and she said,

"I think I actually didn't really figure any of it out until I started taking education classes. So probably college. Through high school I had a lot of teachers who learned to check in with me during tests and remind me of where I should be but that never taught me to self monitor. I definitely wish somebody had taught me how to do it myself earlier."

Obviously it's different for every person, but I never though of self-doubt being what causes people to be unable to focus.  Psychologically it's smart to eliminate that problem by starting to study way ahead of time, but I understand all too well how hard it can be to do stuff that far ahead.  I also liked her emphasis on time management as a test taking strategy, which also happens to be a skill that every single test taker, anxious or not, needs to employ to successfully complete an intensive test.