Stress Causing Factors
When it comes to the
stress associated with standardized test taking, CAT—the company
that has been in the business of reducing test stress for over 60 years—has
come up with a precise and extremely useful definition:
You should think of stress
as any factor, physical or psychological, that impedes your optimum performance.
To put it another way, anything that gets in
the way of your scoring the best you can is a cause of stress that needs
to be identified and minimized.
This means that you don't have to be aiming for
the 99th percentile to be a victim of stress. Stress increases anyone's
risk of falling short of his or her goals, whether s/he's aiming for the
top of the scoring scale or somewhere in the middle.
And it means that even if your preparation has
been the very best—if you've taken a CAT course, for instance—you
nevertheless need to attend to this issue and remove as much stress as
you can.
Only by doing so can all of the knowledge and
technique you've developed work for you on test day.
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