Strategies for Combatting Test Anxiety While Studying for the CGC Exam

For many, the CGC Certification Examination is high-pressure. Perhaps you are a new grad, whose employment is contingent on passing. Maybe you don’t consider yourself a good test-taker and are worried about maintaining your stamina and focus for 200 questions and four hours. You may be a seasoned genetic counselor who took some time away from the profession and find the idea of sitting for the exam yet again daunting even with your expertise and professional background.

Regardless of the circumstances, each of these contexts shares a recognition of high stakes, and thus high emotion around the exam itself, which could easily predispose anyone to test-taking anxiety. This phenomenon is not just specific to the genetic counseling profession: It is thought that approximately 1 in 5 students are affected by test-taking anxiety, with the number thought to be higher in assessment of health professions ^1,2. Testing anxiety is known to have several adverse impacts on both well-being and performance, including increased procrastination³ and stress⁴.

What can be done to combat test anxiety? Although self-care is an important part of the puzzle, it is just one set of tools that can be useful in minimizing test-taking anxiety. In this article, we will briefly share some considerations aimed specifically at minimizing test anxiety, including when it may be time to seek further support.

Manage Your Anxiety by Managing Your Time

Let’s say you feel anxious about an upcoming exam. Rather than tackling the content bit-by-bit, your anxiety grows, and you continually push off reviewing the content — then, you find yourself in the days leading up to your examination feeling uneasy and overwhelmed. This story is unfortunately all too common and highlights how the relationship between test anxiety and procrastination is a challenging web of affect and behavior.

If you find yourself experiencing heightened anxiety around the board exam, consider organizing your study plan around concrete action items and activities, such as reviewing a certain number of flashcards per day, establishing a schedule for viewing certain lectures in a given week, or reviewing practice questions on a weekly basis with a study group. It can also be important to have external forms of accountability, such as an accountability buddy, or “body doubling” (where you study in the presence of another person) to ensure you do not fall into the anxiety-procrastination pipeline. 

Find Peace of Mind

Mindfulness has been of greater interest in recent years both in the broader health professions^2,3 as well as specifically to genetic counselors⁵. Developing a habitual, sustained mindfulness practice has been shown to improve anxiety symptoms⁶, increase empathy and reduce burnout⁵. Mindfulness can take many forms, including meditating for a few minutes daily, engaging in a contemplative task such as solving a puzzle or coloring in a color book — even playing tetris can have mindful impacts. Depending on your school, place of employment or community, there may be other resources you can draw from to help promote a regular mindfulness practice, such as employer-sponsored subscriptions to mindfulness apps, community meditation centers or your school’s student wellness clinic.

Try to Have Fun

It can certainly be a daunting task to revisit and integrate the content covered on the ABGC exam. Wherever possible, try to ask yourself: how can I move beyond simply covering content to really enjoying its review? This may be accomplished by coordinating a trivia night “Jeopardy”-style with your study group, or drawing connections between the content and your hobbies (for instance, remembering phenotypes of different microdeletion syndromes by matching them up to different cartoon characters). For more independent ways to enjoy content, consider listening to lectures during workouts, or when going on a leisurely walk in a new or familiar place. At a minimum, if you struggle to derive joy from the study process, strategize a way to reward yourself for your hard work, such as providing a little treat or reward for yourself after studying for a certain amount of time.

Know, and Address, When the Anxiety Feels Too High

For some folks there will be no level of time management, mindfulness or fun “hacks” to minimize the anxiety they experience when preparing for examinations. If you find yourself experiencing some of the following symptoms for more than a few days in a given week:

• Feeling anxious or on edge
• Not being able to stop or control worrying
• Worrying too much about different things
• Trouble relaxing
• Being so restless it’s hard to sit still
• Increased irritability
• A lingering sense that something awful might happen

— then you may consider consulting your provider about whether further care would be useful in managing your anxiety. There are both long-term and short-term medical interventions for anxiety. Physicians with an integrative health mindset may have recommendations or suggestions for natural or herbal supplements that can be useful in mitigating anxiety, psychopharmaceutical interventions and talk therapy. Importantly, your provider can also discuss with you whether your anxiety might warrant accommodation during the board exam as well and support you with the accommodations process.

Successful completion of the Genetic Counseling Examination is an important milestone in the professional life of a genetic counselor. While the circumstances and realities around our professional lives can create a high-pressure situation around exam preparation and completion, you do not have to suffer the potential for anxiety in silence or isolation. Diligent time management, intentional mindfulness and finding joy in the preparatory process can all help you stay grounded. And importantly, there is no shame in requiring medical support or accommodation to help you be as at peace with the testing process as possible.

Sources

1. Williamson, C., Wright, S. T., & Beck Dallaghan, G. L. (2024). Test Anxiety Among US Medical Students: A Review of the Current Literature. Medical Science Educator, 34(2), 491-499.
2. Martin, R. D., & Naziruddin, Z. (2020). Systematic review of student anxiety and performance during objective structured clinical examinations. Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning, 12(12), 1491-1497.
3. Roshanisefat, S., Azizi, S. M., & Khatony, A. (2021). Research Article Investigating the Relationship of Test Anxiety and Time Management with Academic Procrastination in Students of Health Professions. anxiety, 21, 37.
4. Wadi, M. M., Yusoff, M. S. B., Rahim, A. F. A., & Lah, N. A. Z. N. (2022). Factors influencing test anxiety in health professions education students: a scoping review. SN Social Sciences, 2(9), 174.
5. Silver, J., Caleshu, C., Casson-Parkin, S., & Ormond, K. (2018). Mindfulness among genetic counselors is associated with increased empathy and work engagement and decreased burnout and compassion fatigue. Journal of genetic counseling, 27(5), 1175-1186.
6. Vøllestad, J., Nielsen, M. B., & Nielsen, G. H. (2012). Mindfulness‐and acceptance‐based interventions for anxiety disorders: A systematic review and meta‐analysis. British journal of clinical psychology, 51(3), 239-260.