Test anxiety in maths and physics is common and almost always underestimated. It feels like a blank in front of the page, even when you knew everything the day before. It is not laziness and it is not poor preparation: it is a stress response to an activity where you feel the margin for error is small and the judgement is clear-cut.
In this article you will find five concrete techniques that I use with my students, both in high school and at university, and that I often suggest to parents who write to me because they are worried.
1. Spaced preparation: no more cramming the night before
The most common cause of anxiety is arriving at the test feeling that you have not really understood. And that feeling is almost always the result of studying packed into two or three days instead of spread out.
The rule I give: ten minutes a day for ten days beat ten hours in a single day. For maths it means doing two or three exercises a day throughout the week before the test, rather than twenty the day before. For physics it means rereading the theory in small doses and trying to explain it to yourself out loud.
This method, called “spaced repetition”, lowers the cognitive load of the moment and improves retention. It is not a trick: it is simply how long-term memory works.
2. Timed practice tests: you beat anxiety with exposure
A test is stressful partly because it is an unfamiliar situation: limited time, a blank sheet, no way to ask for help. The more often you live through that situation in a controlled setting, the less it frightens you on the real day.
The practical advice: two timed practice tests in the week before the test. Same duration, same type of exercises, same environment (clear desk, no phone, no music). After each one, analyse your mistakes but do not add anxiety: here a mistake is free information, not a failure.
The same goes for physics. If you have no old tests, build your own from the textbook problems, leaving out the ones whose solution you have already seen. For maths tests with exercises similar to those of calculus, this article on derivatives can also help. And if you would rather have a ready-made, timed paper, you will find maths and physics tests for every year of high school.
3. Managing your time during the test
Many students panic in the first five minutes: they read the first exercise, do not understand it at once, and from that moment on they think “I can’t do this”. The damage is huge: you have burnt twenty minutes of emotional energy on an exercise that may not even be worth more than any other.
The rule I teach:
- In the first 3 minutes, read the whole test. Next to each exercise, jot down an estimate of its difficulty (easy / medium / hard).
- Start with the exercises that look easy. You unlock marks and calm your system down.
- Move on to the medium ones. Leave the hard ones for last.
- When you have been stuck on an exercise for more than 5 minutes, move on. You will come back to it later with a fresher mind.
This method reduces anxiety because it gives you a plan. Anxiety hates situations without a plan.
4. Building confidence with “controlled mistakes”
In the weeks before the test, do exercises that are slightly harder than the ones you expect in the test itself. You will get things wrong. That is exactly the point.
Making mistakes in a study setting, understanding why, and correcting them builds a different kind of confidence from the one you get by “only doing exercises I already know how to do”. It gets you used to the idea that being stuck is not the end of the world: it is information. When the test arrives and you freeze on an exercise (it happens to everyone), your brain reacts with “OK, let’s deal with it” instead of “it’s over”.
A variation I use in my lessons: take the last test that went badly and redo it, but more slowly, reasoning aloud through every step. It turns a negative memory into a concrete result, and changes the way your brain associates “physics test” with an emotion. For the most frequent physics mistakes, I have written a dedicated article on typical physics mistakes in high school.
5. The routine for the day before and the day itself
The last point is the least technical but perhaps the most important. The evening before:
- No new theory. Only a light review of your notes, half an hour at most.
- Get your pencil case, calculator and any permitted formula sheet ready.
- Go to bed at a decent hour. Cutting two hours of sleep to study costs more than it gains.
In the morning:
- A normal breakfast; do not skip it.
- No technical discussion with classmates outside the classroom. It creates pointless anxiety and adds nothing.
- Three deep breaths before turning the page over. It sounds trivial, but it lowers your heart rate and measurably improves concentration.
A note for parents
If you are a parent and you see your son or daughter struggling with test anxiety, avoid two opposite and equally counterproductive reactions: playing it down (“come on, it’s only a test”) and dramatising it (“if you do badly you won’t pass the year”). Both feed the anxiety.
What works is offering structure: a clear study plan, a quiet environment in the days before, and outside support when it is needed. Often an hour with a tutor reduces anxiety not because they explain more, but because they move the problem from “I never manage” to “here are the three points to work on”.
When it is worth asking for help
If the anxiety keeps coming back at every test despite adequate study, the problem is probably one of method, not of content. In those cases one or two targeted lessons can change the picture completely, because they break the short circuit between “studying” and “result”.
If you suspect that method is exactly the weak point — irregular study, theory and exercises disconnected, solutions looked at too early — start there: I have collected the habits that make the difference in studying maths without stress.
If the anxiety already has a name on your school report or at school, I explained how to ask for the right support tools in the post on PDP and PEI (Italian support plans for students with learning difficulties); and if your question is how many failing grades lead to repeating the year, I answer it in how many failing grades mean being held back.
If you would like to talk about it, write to me or message me on WhatsApp: the first thing I do is work out where the anxiety kicks in, because it is often not where you think. If the block is more about content than about anxiety, you will find the full programme on maths tutoring and physics tutoring.
