Best questions for high school sophomore student survey about test anxiety

Here are some of the best questions for a high school sophomore student survey about test anxiety, plus tips on crafting questions that surface real insights. You can build a conversational survey like this in seconds with Specific’s AI survey generator.

The best open-ended questions for your high school sophomore student survey

Open-ended questions let students share unique perspectives, stories, and concerns—giving us clarity beyond what multiple choice alone ever could. They're essential when we want to surface the "why" behind behaviors or to understand the emotional impact of test anxiety. Considering that 16–20% of students report high test anxiety, and 18% more struggle at moderately high levels [1], these open questions matter more than ever.

1. What thoughts run through your mind when you find out you'll have a big test soon?

2. Can you describe a recent time when you felt anxious before or during a test? What happened?

3. What do you think causes most of your test anxiety?

4. How do you usually prepare for a test, and does it help your anxiety?

5. What physical symptoms (if any) do you notice when you feel test anxiety?

6. What advice would you give to a classmate who feels anxious about tests?

7. Have you found any strategies or habits that help you manage test anxiety? Please share an example.

8. How would you like your teachers or school to support students with test anxiety?

9. How do your feelings about tests affect your classroom experience overall?

10. What else do you want adults at your school to know about how test anxiety impacts you?

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for test anxiety surveys

Single-select multiple-choice questions work best when we need quick, quantifiable trends or want to make it easier for students to start sharing. They're a helpful icebreaker, especially if students feel overwhelmed by open-ended responses. When nearly 80% of first-year high schoolers have reported symptoms of test anxiety, from mild to severe [2], it’s crucial to spot patterns quickly.

Question: How often do you feel nervous or anxious before a test?

• Never

• Sometimes

• Often

• Always

Question: Which of the following best describes your usual reaction when you sit down to take a test?

• Calm and confident

• Somewhat nervous, but manageable

• Very anxious, hard to focus

• Panic or freeze up

Question: What is your go-to strategy for coping with test anxiety?

• Deep breathing or relaxation exercises

• Study more than usual

• Avoid thinking about the test

• Talk to friends or teachers

• Other

When to follow up with "why?" If a student selects “panic or freeze up,” it’s smart to gently ask why that happens or what triggers it. This helps us move past the surface to actionable insight—maybe a fear of judgment, past failure, or pressure at home is to blame, not just the test itself.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? If students’ strategies don’t fit your listed choices, “Other” invites them to share something unique. That’s where unexpected insights or creative coping methods often show up—especially if the survey asks, “Please describe your strategy.”

NPS-style question for measuring test anxiety experiences

NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a simple 0–10 scale question usually used for customer satisfaction, but it’s surprisingly powerful for test anxiety surveys too. We can ask, “How likely are you to recommend your school’s support for test anxiety to a friend who is struggling?” This lets us measure, at a glance, if students feel their school is truly helping. If we see a low NPS, it’s a clear signal to dig deeper. You can generate an NPS survey for test anxiety in one click.

The power of follow-up questions

Often a survey response only scratches the surface. We need context—why do students feel this way, what’s missing, how can their experience improve? With automated AI follow-up questions, Specific’s AI digs deeper in real time. It listens to students’ replies and asks for examples, clarification, or concrete suggestions—just like an expert researcher would in a live interview. This uncovers richer details for actionable insights, making our survey far more than “just a list of questions.” And, because it’s automated, these follow-ups save huge amounts of time compared to handling them manually via email or after the fact.

• Student: "Tests make me really anxious, I just can’t focus."

• AI follow-up: "Can you tell me about a specific situation where you felt this way? What do you think made it hard to focus?"

How many followups to ask? Typically, 2–3 thoughtful follow-ups are enough to get real depth, but it’s smart to let students skip ahead once they’ve shared enough. With Specific, you can set your follow-up preferences so every interview finds the right balance.

This makes it a conversational survey, not just a form. Students feel heard, and their responses become more honest and nuanced—less like a test, more like a chat they want to finish.

Analysis with AI is effortless—just use AI to analyze survey responses. Even when you have a ton of open-text replies, the AI summarizes, finds trends, and helps you act—without hiring a research team.

It’s a new way to do surveys, and it’s easier to experience than to explain. I encourage you to generate your own test anxiety survey and see how conversational AI follow-ups work in practice.

How to prompt ChatGPT (or other GPTs) for the best survey questions

If you’re using ChatGPT or another AI to help draft your survey, start simple, but always add context. For example, try this first:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for High School Sophomore Student survey about Test Anxiety.

But if you give AI more context—like your purpose, what you already know about your students, and the kind of detail you want—results improve a lot. It could look like this:

I'm a school counselor. I want to understand why high school sophomores experience test anxiety, which situations trigger it, and what support they wish was available. Suggest 10 open-ended questions that will give me detailed, honest answers from students.

Next, organize your ideas. Feed the result back to AI and say:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Then, if you see a category like “coping strategies” and want more detail, prompt:

Generate 10 questions for the category ‘coping strategies for test anxiety’.

This way, you end up with a tailored, diverse, and actionable set of questions—never just boilerplate “how do you feel?” queries.

What is a conversational survey? Manual vs. AI-generated

A conversational survey is simply a survey that “talks back”—it adapts, responds, clarifies, and asks follow-up questions that fit the moment. Instead of a cold online form, it feels like a real conversation: more engaging for students, and way more insightful for us. Manual surveys are static: you write all questions in advance, and that’s it. With AI, creation is guided, so you don’t have to be a research pro to design a great survey for a high school sophomore student on test anxiety—AI surfaces expert-level questions in seconds.

Why use AI for high school sophomore student surveys? Because students respond better to a chat-style conversation than a form—they’re more willing to open up about stress and anxiety. And for educators, it’s the fastest way to surface real reasons behind test anxiety, across hundreds of responses. Get more sample questions or learn to create an effective survey step-by-step.

Specific is designed for this experience: conversational, adaptive, and fast. It’s the best-in-class user interface for launching student surveys, and it truly feels effortless for both students and teams gathering feedback.

See this test anxiety survey example now

Start collecting real, honest student insights today—with effortless AI-powered survey creation, smart conversational follow-ups, and rich analytics—all in one simple experience.