How do you deal with test anxiety? 

Background: I believe I've always had test anxiety and it does affect my scores. When I am studying for the exam I am usually more calm and tend to hit more correct answers. But once I'm in the room...sigh -_- Also I have a terrible habit of not double checking answers, quickly submitting the exam as soon as I complete last question and rushing out the classroom (if permitted).

I'm always told that I should just take deep breaths but it hasn't really been working. Or that I feel the anxiety because I am not prepared for the material but I am like this even when I have studied. 

Any tips? Any suggestions (besides deep breaths lol) are appreciated. 

If it's a long test, vs. a quiz, take the first few minutes to read through the whole thing without answering any questions.  It'll calm you down.

I stay off caffeine normally, as my quality of sleep gets much worse when I have it, but when it comes to tests, I always do much better, and am a lot more focused when I have a few sips of green tea or something with caffeine right before the test. I used to have test anxiety up until college or so, so I know what you're going through.

Another thing is to make your practice test's conditions as similar to the real thing as possible (i.e. In a desk, with an uncomfortable wooden chair, no getting up for anything, etc). Then try to imagine this is the real thing, to practice stress relief strategies. If breathing doesn't work, maybe try taking a moment before the test begins to picture one of your happiest memories. How did you feel during that time. You could also try to figure out what relaxes you during your daily life, and try to see if you can incorporate that into your pre-test routine. Listening to upbeat music sometimes helps me. While taking the test, if stressful thoughts come up and nothing else is working, try to redirect your focus to the test in front of you. No thoughts about anything else put the test problems. When stressful thoughts came up during a test, I would sometimes think something like "Focus on the test!" or "Not now! I can think this later, but I'm going to focus on the test now."

The main thing is to find a way to relax yourself. If you're too stressed, you might not be able to concentrate on the test.

Hope some of this helps!^-^

Are you talking about the JLPT in specific or tests in general? (You won't be allowed to rush out of the room for the JLPT, by the way.)

One thing that helps is to get to bed early. Get an extra hour of sleep in - which getting a good night's sleep before is recommended -anyway- for other reasons dealing with concentration and memory. However, what I'm getting at here is that you're more likely to be on edge and respond more sharply to stress if you're also sleep deprived. As much as I love my coffee, doubling up on the caffeine, while it will make you more alert in many senses, will also make you even -more- on edge, and the kind of alertness it brings doesn't really help with concentrating on test questions.

Another thing that I personally found useful was to bring a (fiction) book with me, and take my seat quite early, and read my book until it was time for the test to start. This does several things - reduces the stress of getting to the test on time. You're getting there early, after all, so there's no need to be in a panicked rush. This doesn't -stop- me from being in a panicked rush, especially if I'm showing up later than I intended to even if I'm still -very- early. It does, however, give time to calm down and get over it. The other thing it does is engage my mind so that I'm not dwelling on what's going to be on the test and how I'll do. There's no use in that - there's nothing you can do in the last few minutes that will significantly improve how you'll do on a test, but you -can- work yourself up into a frenzy of worry as you try to review all the material in an impossibly short span of time. Far better, I found, to be reading something enjoyable and totally unrelated. (Well, okay, i was reading a book that was written in Japanese for the last JLPT exam. But I wasn't studying. )
Of course, if there are back to back classes in an exam room, that makes the whole show up early and read thing a little less helpful. With luck there are benches or ledges in the hallway near the room at least. You -can- of course just read while standing in the hall but it tends not to be very relaxing, especially if there's a lot of people passing by, which defeats the whole purpose.

And of course you really want to break that habit of leaving early. By letting yourself leave early instead of taking all the time that you're allowed to take, you're (more deeply) ingraining a habit of rushing through the test. Making the test a race will work against concentrating on each question, and getting correct answers. If you know that you will take any extra time to check all your work, you're more likely to slow down, calm down, concentrate properly and answer everything (or at least as much as you actually know) correctly. Plus you're quite likely to catch a silly mistake or a few of them if the test is long enough.

The way I'm fighting it is with lots of mock tests. I've been doing a lot of them lately, and while my mind still goes blank sometimes during the mock tests, I'm getting used to the "Oh crap, WTF language am I reading?" moments and learning to ignore them, or at least acknowledge them for what they are, and move forward anyway.

It helps me get a feel for "Okay, at this point in the test, I may feel this way emotionally/physically, so if that happens, I shouldn't get too worked up about it."

It also helps me figure out which bits I suck at, so I can work on sucking less at them. And if there are sections I'm good at, I'll start the test with those first, so I build some positive emotions! (Oh yeah, this bit is easy! I know this stuff!) Or maybe mix good and bad sections, to keep from getting too high or too low. Depends.

And if you want a sports metaphor, think about the mock tests as practice, and hpw good practice leads to good performance in the real thing. So by doing them, the "specialness" of the "real thing" is diminished into "Okay, this is just another practice, I've done a bunch of these. The only difference is that this time, if I do well, I won't have to take this test again!"

Meditation also helps, as does anything that improves your ability to dispassionately look at your emotions from a neutral place. Recognize those annoying emotions, give 'em a hug and dope slap, and move on.

Thank you everyone for all the replies!  It isn't for the JLPT but good ol' classroom exams and most recently the TEAS (Test of Essential Academic Skills) which is an entrance exam for nursing school. Here is more info on it
http://www.mometrix.com/academy/teas-test/

As it is inevitable that I will be taking more exams in the future, I would like to apply what I learned here for future exams as well

@rich_f: I actually do mock tests and have a special notebook for each subject called "book of errors"  of which I write the question, my answer and correct answer with explanation. Or if the explanation is too long, I add a reference section (textbook, notes, website, etc) as to where I can find the explanation. 

I actually mainly start to panic when I have to eliminate choices and I'm down to 2. Both seem like the correct answer and then the panic sets in. "OMG which is it? They're both right but I don't have an option to choose more than one. *insert mental ranting of pros/cons list*" I know when I'm really gone when I just stare at my exam like this 

@James736: This issue is more about longer exams. Hmm that is a good idea to read through it as I usually just stay in order. I'll try this out.

@Bokusenou: The only practice test condition I usually do is the time limit as I do most of my studying at cafes. I usually get really worked up when I get stressed during an exam and start mentally throwing F-bombs in my mind.  Apparently I did this once outloud at the cafe unaware until bf told me.  

@SomeCallMeChris: For the TEAS specifically, I had about 5 hours max of sleep. No breakfast. 4 hour exam starting from 8am. TD;LR: my scores were abysmal in comparison to my practice exams. It was actually about a 12% decrease from my average. I actually finished the exam with 30 minutes to spare! No sleep + no food + rushing seems like a recipe for disaster in this case.

Reading has been a recent thing I started to pick up and I agree has been stress relieving. It's nice to not be in my own head space and constantly analyzing if/should/could/would scenarios. I'll bring one of my new books I bought 

(2015-11-18, 9:55 pm)RawrPk Wrote: I actually mainly start to panic when I have to eliminate choices and I'm down to 2. Both seem like the correct answer and then the panic sets in. "OMG which is it? They're both right but I don't have an option to choose more than one. *insert mental ranting of pros/cons list*" I know when I'm really gone when I just stare at my exam like this 

....

I had about 5 hours max of sleep. No breakfast. 4 hour exam starting from 8am. TD;LR: my scores were abysmal in comparison to my practice exams. It was actually about a 12% decrease from my average. I actually finished the exam with 30 minutes to spare! No sleep + no food + rushing seems like a recipe for disaster in this case.

I haven't had to take a test in years, but I was always much better at tests than my peers - even when I felt that they knew more than me.  One thing I can remember is that I never got hung up on one answer.  If it's a multiple choice and both answer seems equally correct, I would mark one answer and come back to it if I had time.  Sometimes simply coming back to the question after a few minutes is enough to see the answers from a different perspective.  Also, getting all the easy questions out of the way takes a bit of the pressure off because you know you aren't going to miss a bunch of easy questions at the end by running out of time and you can feel less rushed and myopic.

I agree about the sleep issue.  I can see being well rested, well fed, comfortable and relaxed making a big difference in getting a good score or not.  I might even try to get to the test 10 minutes early and do a little breathing meditation so you start out with the least amount of anxiety as possible.  If it's a long test, perhaps take 20 seconds every page to breathe and take your mind off the test for a few seconds.

I'm going to be honest and say that I've never had this problem with content I felt comfortable with (the only reason the qualifier is there is because of a couple of tests I took a few semesters ago that I was completely unprepared for). But I do have a somewhat special routine for standardized tests.

This should be fairly obvious, but set any alcohol to the side a few days before the test. This is to ensure that you're properly rested, and getting the most out of your sleep. Now is also a good point to start the mental self-assurance (a.k.a. being a narcissist in a way that only you can know); such psych-ups will be too exciting on the actual test day, so the goal is to be as sure of yourself as possible before the test starts, so that your success is a given. Positive things only. You know you can do it. There's no doubt in your mind. You're as prepared as you can be, and you're ready to win. Because these are things in your head, even if they aren't true now, you need to make them true. As cheesy as it sounds, confidence is the key to bringing out your full ability.

Make sure you have all your stuff together and sleep like the dead the night before. If you wake up early, don't get up unless you've gotten enough sleep (you'll know). Staying in the bed while you're still half asleep will keep you rested until you're ready to get up.
If you can, avoid harsh noises or lights in the morning (and all the way up to the test, if you can). Don't watch TV; ask someone to wake you, if possible, or use an alarm that's less harsh. Use a light from a different room if it's not morning yet (though it probably will be) and keep the curtains mostly closed if it is. For me, being able to wake up gently puts me in a much better mood and so makes me feel more capable and self-confident. It also keeps me from being on full alert.

A day of winning starts with a winning breakfast! Have some eggs (I like fried or scrambled for breakfast), maybe some sausage, and maybe a piece of toast (or something else to sop up the egg yolk if the eggs are fried). The important thing is to get enough carbs, fat, and protein into your body while eating as little as possible (you wouldn't want to feel sluggish or have indigestion while taking the test, after all). If possible, get someone else to cook for you. If you can't live without caffeine, limit yourself to one cup, there's no reason to add stress where it isn't needed, but caffeine isn't your friend during long tests, in my opinion. If you don't normally drink coffee... It's probably better not to. Caffeine makes you more alert, and can improve mental performance, but you're also likely to crash before the test is over (assuming you get up even a couple of hours before the test starts); also, for me, being highly alert is bad for test performance. I normally drink whole milk, but really anything that sits easy in the stomach should be fine (because of this, I would recommend against drinking fruit juice; the acidity can mess with your stomach); of course, if you can't drink milk, don't do it, but I've been drinking milk since I was born! (lol)

Getting to the test... Again, if you can, get someone else to take you. If you don't have that luxury and aren't situated within walking distance... I don't know what to tell you other than 'try to stay relaxed'. Maintaining that morning relaxation is key (for me, at least), so do your best to keep traffic from riling you up.
If you got someone to take you, keep the interior of the car quiet, maybe cover your eyes (this helps me a lot)

Once there, get signed in and find a nice spot to sit and continue relaxing (maybe read a book if you're going to be a while, but only if you can't keep calm otherwise). Remember, you're already certain of your victorious performance, so you have no need of such things as psyching up, that'll only make you anxious at this point.
If you have to urinate, go. If you're one of my unfortunate comrades who won't be urinating for the duration of their visit to the testing center...

The actual test!
Because you're so sure of yourself and are plenty prepared for this test, you silently go to your seat with your supplies and await instructions. Your only goal is the test, nothing else matters, so continue to ignore everything else. When the test starts, begin working immediately (after all, you're a machine that takes this test); read the questions carefully, but quickly. Don't rush. As much as that sounds like opposing advice, think of it like this: you want to squeeze the best performance out of as little time as possible. Ever heard that advice about following through for baseball or martial arts? This is kind of the same: don't swing rashly at the target, don't focus too hard on one question, aim for the end of the test. If you have time remaining, go back and check your answers if you were unsure of something; don't leave any question unanswered.
I've never gotten too excited during a test, but if you do, it's probably worth a few seconds to stop and reestablish calm. However, you don't want it to come to that, and stopping every page might be too much (it really depends on the test though).

Breaking between tests (if we're talking about the JLPT or other multi-section test), you'll probably want to go to the restroom (if you can...) and get a small drink of water (at this point, unless it's a day long test, you shouldn't be putting anything that needs processing in your stomach), but remember, you're still a test taking machine, so go and return quietly. Close your eyes and reestablish calm if you got too excited during the first part of the test (I know that 'STOP' page is so exciting to see after a long test).

For the next session, rinse and repeat. The listening test on the JLPT is something that'll be new for me under actual test conditions (I can't perfectly replicate a testing center at my house), so I don't know if audio-based tests require any specific changes.

Anyway, that's all the explainable bits of how I take tests. I tend to do quite well on standardized tests. The main points are that you should be prepared, minimize stress, and keep all extraneous thoughts at bay (especially stressful ones). The general theme is 'quiet' (I don't talk more than necessary before a test).
The whole day has a weird subdued feeling to it, and I strive to replicate that feeling whenever I take a test, because that's when I'm most effective.