[Test anxiety: various aspects]

"Academic achievement anxiety" (or "test anxiety") is a situation-specific anxiety. In this research, 53 medical student were subjected to the McNair et al. POMS (an inventory assessing six identifiable mood or affective states) during their psychology examination; 31 of them had been tested with the POMS also 50-70 days before the examination and the other 22 repeated the test 50-70 days after it. All the emotional states increased significantly during the examination, except the Anger-Hostility factor; the significance of the "period effect" for the Confusion-Bewilderment factor shows there is a state of confusion due to the novelty of the test.