Exam stress is widespread among teenagers, but it does not look the same for every student. International data show frequent worry about tests, grades and school tasks, alongside differences by gender, achievement level, socioeconomic background and country. The figures below distinguish direct measures of test anxiety from related measures of academic pressure and stress symptoms.
Contents
- How common are test and study worries?
- How exam stress differs by gender
- Achievement, background and support
- How schoolwork anxiety varies by country
- What PISA 2022 says about mathematics anxiety
- Exam pressure and reported stress symptoms
How common are test and study worries?
The OECD’s PISA 2015 Results (Volume III): Students’ Well-Being measured schoolwork-related anxiety through self-reports from 15-year-old students. Across OECD countries, 66% said they worried about getting poor grades at school, while 59% often worried that taking a test would be difficult.
Preparation did not remove anxiety for many students. In the same PISA 2015 results, 55% said they felt very anxious for a test even when well prepared. A smaller, but still substantial, 37% said they got very tense when studying for a test. Another 52% said they got nervous when they did not know how to solve a task at school.
These measures describe related experiences rather than one single definition of “exam stress.” Worry about grades, fear that a test will be difficult, tension during study and nervousness when stuck can overlap, but they are reported as separate survey items. The PISA percentages refer to students’ agreement or strong agreement with the relevant statements.
Taken together, the figures suggest that exam stress is not limited to the moment when a student sits down to take a test. It can begin with anticipation, continue during preparation and appear when a student encounters a difficult task. For study planning, that distinction matters: a learner who worries about grades may need a different kind of support from one who becomes tense only while revising or freezes when a problem is unfamiliar.
How exam stress differs by gender
PISA 2015 found a consistent gender gap in schoolwork-related anxiety. Across OECD countries, 64% of girls said they felt very anxious for a test even when well prepared, compared with 47% of boys. Boys were also about 13 percentage points less likely than girls to say they got very tense when studying for a test.
The pattern was broad rather than confined to a few education systems. In all 72 PISA 2015 participating countries and economies, girls reported greater schoolwork-related anxiety than boys. The gap also appeared among high achievers: within the top quarter of science performers across OECD countries, 55% of girls versus 38% of boys said they felt very anxious for a well-prepared test.
| PISA 2015 group | Very anxious for a test even when well prepared |
|---|---|
| Girls across OECD countries | 64% |
| Boys across OECD countries | 47% |
| Girls in top quarter of science performers | 55% |
| Boys in top quarter of science performers | 38% |
The high-achiever comparison is important because it shows that stronger performance does not eliminate the gender difference. Anxiety can coexist with strong academic results. A student may understand the material and still experience intense worry about evaluation.
PISA 2022 adds a broader socio-emotional perspective. Its mathematics-anxiety measure was negatively associated with all five socio-emotional skills measured, including stress resistance and emotional control. This is an association, not proof that one factor causes the other, but it indicates that exam-related anxiety is connected with a wider set of learning and well-being experiences.
Achievement, background and support
Achievement level also relates to reported test anxiety. Across OECD countries in PISA 2015, 63% of students in the bottom quarter of science performance felt anxious for a test regardless of preparation, compared with 46% of students in the top quarter. The difference was 17 percentage points.
Socioeconomic background can matter as well. In Sweden, 65% of socioeconomically disadvantaged students often worried that taking a test would be difficult, compared with 48% of advantaged students. This country-specific comparison should not be treated as an OECD-wide estimate, but it illustrates how anxiety can be distributed unevenly within an education system.
PISA 2022 reported an association between mathematics anxiety and achievement after profile and performance controls. Across OECD countries, a one-point increase in the mathematics-anxiety index was associated with an 18-point decrease in mathematics achievement. The size of the association varied: it was 27 points in Denmark and 6 points in Brunei Darussalam, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador.
The PISA 2022 results also connected pressure from home with performance. Feeling pressure from parents was associated with a 14-point decrease in mathematics performance after student and school profile controls. The wording describes an adjusted association, not a causal estimate of how much pressure itself reduces performance.
Supportive relationships showed the opposite pattern in the anxiety measure. Across OECD countries, a one-point increase in the quality-of-student-teacher-relationship index was associated with a 0.13 decrease in the mathematics-anxiety index after performance controls. This result does not establish that every supportive relationship will reduce anxiety by exactly that amount; it reports the statistical relationship in the PISA 2022 analysis.
An older England estimate provides another reference point. About 15% of GCSE students were estimated to fall into the highly test-anxious category in research cited by Ofqual. The estimate dates from research conducted in 2014 and was cited in a 2019 publication, so it should not be read as a current prevalence figure or as directly comparable with the PISA percentages.
How schoolwork anxiety varies by country
The PISA 2015 country results show substantial variation in the share of 15-year-olds reporting particular anxiety experiences. The measures below are not a single country ranking because they refer to different schoolwork-anxiety items.
| Country or economy | PISA 2015 measure | Students reporting it |
|---|---|---|
| Costa Rica | Worried about poor grades | 92% |
| Uruguay | Worried about poor grades | 90% |
| Italy | Worried about poor grades | 85% |
| Mexico | Worried about poor grades | 79% |
| Portugal | Often worried a test would be difficult | 84% |
| Japan | Often worried a test would be difficult | 78% |
| Spain | Often worried a test would be difficult | 75% |
| Brazil | Very anxious for a well-prepared test | 81% |
| United Kingdom | Very anxious for a well-prepared test | 72% |
| United States | Very anxious for a well-prepared test | 68% |
| Netherlands | Very anxious for a well-prepared test | 39% |
| Finland | Very anxious for a well-prepared test | 49% |
Other PISA 2015 figures show variation in study tension and task-related nervousness. In New Zealand, 51% of students said they got very tense when studying for a test, compared with 56% in Turkey, 60% in Singapore and 22% in Germany. When students did not know how to solve a school task, 65% in Greece and 77% in Italy said they got nervous. In Portugal, 69% felt very anxious for a test even when well prepared.
These country figures come from the OECD table’s five schoolwork-anxiety items. They describe self-reported experiences measured in PISA 2015, not clinical diagnoses and not a current 2026 estimate. Differences may reflect many features of students’ circumstances and education systems, and the figures should be compared only when the survey item is the same.
What PISA 2022 says about mathematics anxiety
The PISA 2022 Results (Volume V), “Students’ predispositions to learning” provides newer indicators for 15-year-olds across OECD countries. These measures focus on mathematics and related academic pressure rather than reproducing the PISA 2015 test-anxiety items.
In PISA 2022, 65% of students worried about getting poor marks in mathematics and 55% felt anxious about failing in mathematics. Around 40% felt nervous, helpless or anxious while solving mathematics problems or doing homework. Mathematics anxiety was higher in 2022 than in 2012 in most participating countries and economies; it fell in three systems: Korea, Singapore and Thailand.
Future planning was another source of pressure. Almost 50% of 15-year-olds across OECD countries worried that they were not prepared for life after compulsory education. Almost 45% worried that they would not have enough money to do what they wanted after compulsory education. Less than 35% reported feeling pressure from family to follow a specific post-school path.
The wider indicators help put exam anxiety in context. A student can be worried about a test or grade while also carrying concerns about mathematics performance, homework, financial security or the transition beyond compulsory education. These are related academic-pressure measures, not interchangeable estimates of exam stress.
Exam pressure and reported stress symptoms
Survey evidence from England and the United States describes how students connect school demands with stress. In March 2020, an England survey of almost 2,000 children aged 8–17 found that 66% said homework and/or exams were what stressed them most. In the same survey, 39% identified worrying about what other people think, while 25% identified bullying.
An England survey about teacher-assessed grades during the pandemic gives a separate view of assessment load. Among 540 respondents in 2021, 79% agreed or strongly agreed that they were stressed about the amount of tests or assessments completed, and 59% strongly agreed. Agreement varied by school type: 86% in independent schools, 83% in secondary schools, 79% in selective schools and 72% in colleges.
The Teacher Assessed Grades in summer 2021: Surveys concerns teacher-assessed grades during pandemic disruption, not a normal exam series. Its results therefore provide context about perceived assessment pressure in that period rather than a general estimate for all examinations.
The American Psychological Association’s A STRESS snapshot surveyed U.S. teens in 2013. School was a source of stress for 83% of teens, while getting into a good college or deciding what to do after high school was a source of stress for 69%. During the previous month, 35% reported lying awake at night because of stress, 40% reported feeling irritable or angry because of stress and 36% reported feeling nervous or anxious because of stress.
The APA figures are from a 2013 U.S. teen stress survey, not a current prevalence estimate. They also measure stress sources and reported symptoms rather than diagnosing an anxiety disorder. Read alongside PISA, they show why study support can include both practical preparation and attention to the emotional experience surrounding tests, grades and future decisions.