Phenomenon 158: Anxietas Examinis

Another completely irrational and utterly foolish, one might even say idiotic, phenomenon is called Anxietas Examinis, or test anxiety, as my lesser cultivated, but nevertheless highly regarded colleagues at the Imperial Academy would call it.

The avid observer can study this unproductive phenomenon in a wide range of extraordinary subjects among our students. Nevertheless, many much lesser distinguished subjects are available outside of our hallowed halls, exempli gratia at religious schools, public schools, apprentices of craftsmanships, and other similar occurrences among people of common education.

Years of methodical studies prove a strong correlation of symptoms and the date of scheduled exams. We have little correlation with unscheduled surprise assessments. We will discuss this relation in section 2.

The subjects exhibit a wide range of (unfortunately) unspecific symptoms like failure to take repose, lack of good sleep, inability to concentrate, lack of appetite, nervousness, et cetera. 
In one common consequence, these symptoms are completely unhelpful and are unsuited to increase the performance of the student. We shall deliberate upon these symptoms at length in section 3.

A small yet significant group of students is not even aware of their state and thus is not even worthy to receive any kind of attention by our esteemed institutions at all.

Among those who do realize their state, or those who receive well-intentioned advice from our caring collegium, we have the largest group of subjects who will ignore all their training, all common sense, and will fall back on fairy-tale remediations, religious refuge, shamanic rituals, foolish abuse of (mostly low-quality) substances, or even worse. We will discuss these imbecile approaches to the phenomenon in section 4.

Only a minuscule group of subjects is self-aware AND sufficiently competent to employ well-known methods, cleansing themselves from this repulsive kind of emotional thinking, and return to the praiseworthy earnestness which symbolises the superiority of our institution.

(..)

— Bartalasar Emilio Farlesce, 1259, A scientific observation of irrational behaviours and obsessions, 23rd edition, University of Oxenfurt