I always hated scantron tests. Aside from the inherent pressure of test-taking and fearing that one poor performance will hinder my future prospects, scantron tests had an additional layer of anxiety and pressure to them. I have a mild case of OCD - checking to see if doors are locked repeatedly, washing my hands multiple times at once, etc - and one area where my OCD explodes is test taking. The lexicon of paranoia that floods an OCDer's mind while taking a scantron test is overwhelming. Picture it, it's Abnormal Psychology, final exam, at 10:15 in the morning at Bascom Hill in beautiful Madison, WI. You have excessively studied, to the point where you cannot read the textbook because your highlighting strategies has rendered the text unreadable. You receive the test and sit poised to tackle the exam that is going to count for 40% of your life in the class. As you answer the first question you look down at your pencil and wonder if your mechanical pencil constitutes a #2 pencil. What happens if somebody made a mistake and I was using a different type of lead that the scantron wouldn't be able to read thus making every answer on my exam wrong? How essential is it to use a #2 pencil? Are there other numbered pencils, because I am only familiar with the #2. I push that concern out of my mind, trying to tell myself that I have used this exact same pencil before without any repercussions.

Halfway through the test I realize that I answered a question incorrectly and go to erase the bubble and put in my new answer. As I stare down at the exam, I wonder if I have completely erased the bubble or if there were trace amounts of lead still in the bubble thus confusing the scantron machine into thinking that I have chosen two answers, and thus ultimately loosing the point. Now, paranoid and full of anxiety, I excessively erase the bubble until it is no longer there, and then calmly move on to the next question.

At the end of the exam, I follow the wise and sagacious words of my teacher and "double check" my work. However, because I have OCD that become checking my exam question by question at least five times to make sure that everything lines up perfectly. What happens if my answers don't line up with the questions and thus I get everything wrong, fail the class, fail out of college and live in perpetual fear of scantron exams the rest of my life. I finish the exam in 45 minutes and then spend the next 45 minutes too paralyzed to turn in the exam for fear that, in some highly improbable way, I have completely and utterly screwed up the entire exam and excessively check and re-check my answers. 

Let me just say that I am thankful I am no longer in a place where I have to encounter scantron exams on a regular basis.