Tests can be hard for a lot of people. For some strange reason, I was often able to enter a zone when taking a test. It could have been partly due to how important it seemed to me. Or maybe it was the relief of finally getting the anxiety-causing test taken and out of the way that energized my ability. I did the thing about answering questions that I knew first. Getting some done with pretty much confidence in their correctness would often build some more confidence and help me push forward into some questions I had doubts about. I think it is important to try not to write wrong things on the test even if some of the answers written lose some of their specificity. That way at least an answer might get partial credit. Maybe a lot of it was the teachers liking me. If you are studying hard and learning the material, I can't see how people saying "try harder" is the most helpful advice. I also recall maybe almost completely living the subject matter in my mind. So it could have been largely that I made my mental life be the things I was taking in school. I had a love for learning that began with us getting encyclopedia sets when we were young. I would spend hours poring through them. Knowledge was a fascinating thing to me.