Don’t Fuggedaboutit

From CNN: Math anxiety hinders one’s ability to do well on tests by occupying the working memory.

It’s no secret that the capacity of the working memory is limited (7 +/- 2, anyone?), but apparently it can be even further restricted when one is anxious, or at least in a math test-taking situation.

As someone with a history of choking on math tests throughout high school (thankfully, this didn’t seem to apply to statistics, the only math I had to take in college and grad school), I find this a great relief to have an explanation for what was going on. I knew the material, but it always happened that one or two questions in I’d suddenly not remember crucial equations or operations. Luckily, I was able to make up for my deficits by doing really well on homework. Except for trigonometry. To this day, I’d still like to have another go at that class.