Test Anxiety

There were many questions in this chapter that I've asked myself many times and I still don't know how to answer them like: 1. "What should we look for, to determine the extent of student understanding?" 2. ..."what would count as evidence of successful learning?" (p. 146)
Throughout my teaching career, some of my students had a deep understanding of the material I taught, but they would do poorly during test time. My best friend (and math study buddy) had the same problem with math. When working on our assignments, she would explain to me the "why we do what we do" and how it relates to the "big idea". She was awesome, but would get anxiety attacks right before the test and almost fail. With this in mind, I've always tried to be aware of students who suffer from test anxieties, but I haven't yet found a way to assess students other than giving a traditional test.