Sitting in exams may often turn out to be nerve-wracking, however, being anxious beforehand can boost your grades, a new study has found.
Researchers have found that being anxious only has a negative impact on results if a child’s memory is poor.
However, if a young person has a good memory, his tendency to feel anxious is linked with getting better mark, the
The research assessed 96 children aged 12 to 14 in memory and anxiety tests.
A questionnaire established how anxious the children usually felt, and the results were measured against their ability to perform computerised tests involving “complex” or working-memory skills.
“We found that for individuals with low working-memory capacity, increases in (a tendency towards) anxiety were related to decreases in cognitive test performance,” researchers said.
“For those with high working-memory capacity, however, the pattern of results was reversed. An increase in (a tendency towards) anxiety was linearly associated with higher test scores.
“These effects were not better accounted for by gender, age, or time of testing,” researchers said.
The study findings are published in the British Journal of Psychology. ’