Students in the German education system are increasingly confronted with (standardized) examination situations due to intensified educational monitoring and a focus on output orientation. High exam anxiety, as a performance-decreasing emotion, gains new relevance in light of these developments; however, it has hardly been addressed in either educational policy discussions or the German-speaking academic discourse. This study analyzes how learners perceive the central final mathematics examination at the end of secondary education I, which environmental conditions and personality variables influence their exam anxiety and coping strategies before and during the examination situation, and how these factors affect their performance. To this end, a cognitive-theoretical process model of school exam anxiety is developed and empirically tested.