Exam phobia

A kind of phobia found in everyone, children, adolescents, adults; irrespective of age are prone to the stress and worries an examination brings along. The question is, why is this fear? After some thought, I could come to a sensible conclusion. That was:
because some uncontrollable force beyond our reach and knowledge, an unknown force is going to interrogate us and on the basis of our knowledge, understanding and application we have to answer and our saviours, our resources, our books wouldn't be in our access to save us.
Everyone feels the same in the examination scenario, no matter what age group they belong to. Adults handle the examination time and stress on their own because they have become accustomed to it but younger ones, adolescents and children are the most vulnerable ni victims. The sense of competition frightens them and they have sleepless nights coupled with loss of appetite. Of course examination is necessary to evaluate the learning of the students and I am certainly not against it, but there are certain simple things that can be done to avoid the stress and anxiety here. If everyone is told competition is only with themselves and their previous scores, perhaps things would be much better. The comparisons that parents do have a lot of effect on the young minds which can hamper their overall social development. Its best to make them compete with the scores they had earlier, that would for sure bring out better of their potential.