We’ve all had the experience of being nervous before a test, but sometimes the stress and anxiety can start to interfere with your performance on the test itself. This is called test anxiety (see part one of this post for more information on what test anxiety is and some preliminary ways to overcome it). Luckily, there are plenty of concrete ways to get over test anxiety and help you stay calm during the many important standardized tests you’ll take junior year!

Junior year is full of standardized tests—SATs, ACTs, SAT IIs, APs—but whatever the acronym, even the thought of sitting for hours filling in tiny scantron bubbles with a number two pencil can be enough to make your palms sweat.

Taking the SAT exam can be a self-esteem crushing, nerve-wracking part of the college admissions process. It’s definitely not designed to be a walk in the park, and consists of three math, reading, and writing sections, approximately a four hour interval to complete these sections, and a score posted online that can seem like the end of the world.