Sometimes, anxiety helps us by motivating us to study for a test, but if we become too anxious, we pass our optimal level of arousal and spend too much time worrying instead of studying. This type of correlation is described as

A) a downward spiral.
B) the inverted-U hypothesis.
C) negative.
D) positive.

This correlation is described as the inverted-U hypothesis, which suggests that there is an optimal level of arousal for performance, and if we go beyond it, performance declines. In this case, too much anxiety can lead to decreased performance on the test, as we spend too much time worrying instead of studying effectively.