[georgerobinson]

I would like to second this thought. I'm currently doing a masters degree and the examinations are very different to those from undergraduate. Rather, the exam papers are all about applying your knowledge and experience in order to solve unfamiliar questions on familiar content. Therefore, when you write an exam paper you must keep calm. If you let your emotions take control of the situation it can be very hard to recover.

For example: I sat an exam just two days ago when one question offered an unfamiliar ordering of events in an incomplete version of the Paxos consensus algorithm. The question was looking for candidates to identify situations under which the protocol would fail. There is a huge amount of pressure to figure it out in the 20 minutes you have. Getting stressed out and context switching between questions WILL prevent you from getting the answer right. Stay cool, think clearly, and 9/10 you will get the answer.

Conversely, there was a lady sitting next to me in one of my exams this morning. The questions were challenging and largely unexpected. I could see that she was holding back tears and frantically trying to find questions she thought she could answer. As awful as it sounds, she let her emotions take control of the situation and as a result lost at least 30 minutes where she could have been working her way through the exam getting at least partial marks on questions.

I think taking control of your emotions is something you can learn. Whether it is easy or not probably depends on the individual. I am no expert. For me, a masters degree has really helped me take control of high stress situations. I am much more capable at identifying causation, eliminating correlation and finding the answer than I ever was before.