How to Overcome GMAT Test Anxiety
Updated for the new GMAT in 2024
If you suffer from GMAT test anxiety, you’re not alone. Many test-takers experience an unpleasant mix of mental and physical anxiety symptoms that prevent a great GMAT performance. You can tackle GMAT anxiety by studying thoroughly, incorporating mindfulness techniques, examining lifestyle factors such as sleep and diet, and speaking to a performance psychologist.
What are the signs of GMAT performance anxiety?
The most common sign of GMAT test anxiety is a massive decline in your score from your practice tests to your actual GMAT exam. If you’ve taken official GMAT practice tests from mba.com and scored far lower on test day, that’s a sign that you might be experiencing GMAT performance anxiety.
Many people assume that test anxiety always includes obvious physical symptoms such as sweaty palms or an elevated heartbeat. However, a large percentage of GMAT test-takers who suffer from test anxiety report that they do not “feel anxious” while they’re taking the exam.
In addition to physical symptoms, less-obvious manifestations of anxiety might include any of the following:
Sleepless nights before test day
Careless errors on your GMAT exam
Sudden spirals of doubt or despair about your future
Frequent fears of being stuck
Stubbornly spending far too much time on a small number of questions
Increased difficulty understanding reading passages on test day
For a deeper understanding of what’s happening when you panic on your GMAT test day, check out this video:
reduce GMAT anxiety via better test preparation
One way to diminish GMAT test anxiety is to ensure that you’re well prepared for the exam. If you know you haven’t put in the work, you can expect to feel unprepared on test day, and this can cause a spike in your anxiety. Before you step into the exam room, you should be familiar with the format and content of the exam at minimum, and you should certainly have several official GMAT practice tests under your belt. Ideally, your official practice test scores should be comfortably in your target range.
Unfortunately, many of the GMAT students we tutor DO put in plenty of time and effort, but still feel anxiety when they take their GMAT exam. So while preparing for the exam is one piece of the puzzle, it may not be enough on its own to feel calm and confident as you take the GMAT.
For an example of a student whose GMAT test anxiety improved substantially partly because of better preparation for the exam itself, check out our video below about the GMAT tutoring process, which profiles a student who improved from 6 to 40 on the GMAT verbal section of the “old” GMAT exam – an improvement of more than 80 percentile points:
how a performance psychologist can help your GMAT score
An expert in performance psychology can help you find your unique, personal recipe for reducing GMAT anxiety. Although psychology-based performance coaching is still somewhat rare in the world of standardized test tutoring, elite athletes and executives have received mental skills training from performance psychologists for decades.
Athletes and performers of any type — including students who are preparing for the GMAT, GRE, LSAT, or other standardized tests — face remarkably similar challenges. Whether you are a track athlete with a final opportunity to make the Olympics, an executive making a career-defining presentation to the board of directors, or a student about to begin a GMAT practice test, you have poured your heart and soul into working towards a goal, and now it is time to execute.
When you’re facing a challenge that you care deeply about, you’ll inevitably feel some degree of anxiety, self-doubt, and fear. These feelings are normal, but if left unabated, they undermine your confidence and execution, and cause you to “get in your own way.”
Some people think that the antidote is to “care less”, but that would only diminish the passion and commitment you have to your MBA and career goals. Instead, an effective way to address your performance struggles is to reinterpret the pressure you put on yourself, and learn skills to manage your experience of that pressure. A performance coach can also help you develop energy management strategies so that when you inevitably experience pressure, you’ll have breathing, relaxation, and “reset” strategies that can help you refocus on the question in front of you.
Here are some indicators that you may benefit from more structured training with a performance coach:
You are performing better without pressure (e.g., your scores on practice tests are higher than on the actual GMAT, or you “know the material” but struggle to use that knowledge effectively on the exam)
You experience a high degree of anxiety or stress before a test
You struggle to “get started”, constantly putting off studying until you’re forced to cram
You feel overwhelmed when you sit down to study, and have a difficult time staying focused
You constantly find yourself worrying about the future, your score, or what others might think when studying or taking tests
You study hard but have low confidence and belief in yourself
You beat yourself up over mistakes and hold on to them, affecting your performance on subsequent questions
For more tips on overcoming GMAT performance anxiety featuring performance psychologist Jen Schumacher, watch this video:
Mindfulness practice reduces GMAT test anxiety
Another tool that can be an effective weapon against GMAT anxiety is mindfulness meditation. When you meditate, you train your brain to let go of certain thoughts, and instead to focus on something neutral and consistent, such as your breath.
This is a valuable skill if you find yourself distracted by anxious thoughts during the GMAT. Through daily practice, you can learn to turn your attention away from these distracting thoughts and back to answering the question on the screen in front of you.
For more on practicing mindfulness with meditation to improve your GMAT performance, check out this video:
How sleep, nutrition, & Exercise can reduce GMAT anxiety
Changes to your daily routine could help you enter the test room in a more relaxed and healthy frame of mind.
Some symptoms of anxiety -- a racing heart and excessive sweating, for example -- occur when your body is too amped up for the task at hand. One way to reduce these symptoms is to get regular exercise. Choose an activity that fits in with your schedule, and make it a goal to elevate your heart rate every day, even for just a short period of time. Doing this will allow your body to expend excess energy so it doesn’t get in your way while taking the GMAT.
Nutrition can also play a role in managing your energy levels, which can help with the symptoms of anxiety. Think about the way you eat -- do your dietary habits leave you satiated and energized? Do you rely on caffeine or sugar in a way that leads to jitters and crashes? If necessary, make changes to your diet to ensure a consistent level of energy throughout the day. There is also a strong link between anxiety and the gut biome, and a trained nutritionist can provide testing and resources to help your body develop improved resistance to stress.
In addition, adequate sleep is imperative for showing up relaxed and refreshed on test day. Poor or inadequate sleep leaves your body and mind feeling stressed out, and you’ll have less capacity to regulate your anxiety symptoms if you’re chronically behind on sleep.