Examophobia?

Isn't it funny how we have words for bibliophobia ( fear of books ), didaskaleinophobia ( fear of school ) and even atychiphobia ( fear of failure ) - but I can't find a Latin word for fear of exams? Surely someone has coined a phrase for this particular phobia! But examophobia and testophobia just seems far too trite.

Fear of exams?

You might say that I've gradually grown inured to exams. In the past, desperate last-minute mugging for school exams certainly gave me cause for plenty of sleepless nights - but the older I got, the less affected I seemed to be by the mounting pressures of a coming exam.


Nightmares in pyjamas!
No doubt because I've fallen into a state of denial by internalizing my growing fears instead. Hence my recurring nightmares of being seated in a cavernous exam hall with nothing to write on the exam paper. Fancy me being thrust every damned night into a Mandarin linguistics exam! Staring at an empty answer sheet with loads of confusing Chinese gobbledygook.

Enough to give anyone the shivers. Or at least a speechless Chinaman like me.

Reason enough to take a break from it all. Seriously. While wading through piles of dusty textbooks, I made a quick scribbled note of the numbers of times I've had exams. Obviously the number increased exponentially once I joined medical school. Came to a bitter conclusion that almost half my life has been spent either anticipating, sitting for or desperately avoiding exams.

Hell, I might as well take up a career as a professional examination candidate. Surely I can darken the multiple choices, draw mismatched diagrams and scribble unintelligible rubbish with the best of them!