Everyone struggles with some amount of anxiety when taking a test like the GMAT, but some people struggle more than others. Stress can also affect your preparation before you ever get to the test center “ if you’re too stressed out when studying, that will hurt your ability to make and recall memories. So what can we do to reduce studying and test-taking stress?

Know what’s coming

The more you’re prepared for what you’re going to face, the less stressed you’ll be. This won’t completely eliminate your anxiety “ nothing will “ but it can help to reduce stress to more manageable levels.

One major source of stress on this test is the feeling that you need to get everything right (and getting stressed out when you hit questions that you know you’re getting wrong). Read this article: In It To Win It. The nutshell: you’re not trying to get everything right. Nobody gets everything right, including me and other 99th percentile testers!

Read more