Nursing programs can be highly stressful, and nursing students have been found to be more test-anxious than other students. The present investigation examines a practical program to reduce test-anxiety impairment and improve academic performance for a significant number of highly anxious nursing students. Incoming nursing students were screened using the Westside Test Anxiety scale, and half (42 of 84) were identified as having high- or moderately-high anxiety and were randomly assigned to an "active control" Treatment or an information Control group. Students in both groups were introduced to their material and encouraged to review it. Students took the comprehensive Evolve/HESI exit exam in the early spring. The Treatment group showed a significant 12+ percentile gain over the Control group on the HESI (p less than 0.05), and a 9 percentile gain over the Controls on their spring GPAs. The active control treatment protocol used here is seen to provide a cost-effective intervention to improve test performance. Circumstances permitting, the authors recommend that nursing programs include provisions for highly anxious students. (Contains 1 table.)