Standardized testing can take a big toll on students' minds, and emotions, but they can also get physically stressed from it as well. It has been proven that anxiety and distress the students entail are not strange concepts when it comes to testing. The majority of America’s students have suffered through many hours of testing periods with high consequences. The effects on mental health when it comes to filling in circles on a test are devastating, (ProCon.org., 2022).
There are many ways in which this type of testing negatively impacts the student’s well-being. Students are placed under expectations of perfection and suffer under too much pressure and competition. According to the article named “The Stress Behind the Test: How Standardized Testing Affects Mental HEalth, by Ashley Chase, “the consequences of doing poorly on a test are often exaggerated by society so that students feel that their future college, future job, future family all ride on how well he or she does on the exam”. This is one of the reasons why this type of testing creates major anxiety and stress on students. 
Receiving a low score or even a lower-than-expected score can be debilitating, as students usually spend a lot of time studying for these types of tests, making them feel that their learning is judged and characterized by a scale or points and not necessarily what they actually learn and fully understand. It’s like they are measuring their level of intelligence and not necessarily the quality of students they are. 
In addition, the nature of the test itself sends off harmful and insensitive signals. We have to consider that students sit in a room for hours in silence and under pressure. Pressure from the school, the teacher, the parents, and themselves. They are somewhat forced to focus. Instead of having the students go through the struggles of what stress and anxiety can do to a person, we should remind them that their future success is not based on a standardized test, but on the knowledge and thrive they possess to be successful (Chase, 2017). They need to understand the importance of valuing everything they learn from their classes and know that their very best is always enough.

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