Most of the population show high levels of anxiety in test situations such as speaking in public, interviews, etc. Among them, academic test situations produce an increased amount in anxiety reaction, generating a performance decrease. Anxiety reaction includes cognitive responses such as worry, uneasiness, etc; physiological responses such as tachycardia, or respiratory difficulties; as well as motor responses manifested by repetitive movements, an excessive consumption of food or drink and even, test situation avoidance.

Objectives: A training program directed at reducing anxiety in test anxious students, which has as main goals to reduce anxiety in exam situations as well as to increase academic performance, is presented.

Method: The program has been applied to a sample of 11 subjects of ages ranged from 15 to 18 who were studying in two high schools in Madrid and showed a high level of anxiety in academic test situations.

This study is composed of the following stages:

STAGE 1: Pre-Treatment Assessment: In this phase a detailed assessment of the level of anxiety, is carried out. For it, two instruments are selected, the Inventario de Situaciones y Respuestas de Ansiedad -ISRA- (Miguel-Tobal J.J. & Cano-Vindel A., 1988) as well as the Test Anxiety Inventory -TAI-(Spielberger C.D., 1980). In addition, performance is assessed by the grade point average of the last exams fulfilled before the program started.

STAGE 2: Treatment: In which different techniques such as progressive muscular relaxation, systematic desensitisation, self-statements training, etc. are applied.

STAGE 3: Post-Treatment Assessment: In which anxiety is assessed by ISRA and TAI again. An assessment is also made of performance, checking the grade point average obtained for every subject in the exams fulfilled after the complete application of the program.

Results: Results obtained in the ISRA show a decrease in the general level of anxiety, in the three systems of response (cognitive, physiological and motor) as well as in the four specific traits or situational areas (test, interpersonal, phobic and daily life anxiety). Although these reductions are considerable, only those obtained in the cognitive system of response as well as in the daily life situations are statistically significant.

Regarding the specific situation of exams, measured by TAI, it must be pointed out the significant decrease obtained in the two factors which offers this scale (worry and emotionality) as well as in the total score.

Results obtained in the grade point average show a statistically significant increase.

Conclusions: These results show the program efficacy in reducing academic test anxiety as well as in increasing performance.

Key Words: Cognitive-behavioural program, Text anxiety, Performance.