The aim of this paper is to examine the connection between exam anxiety and perfectionism and study characteristics and students' academic achievement. The research was conducted as part of the course: Social work and youth of socially unacceptable behavior, at the Faculty of Law, Study Center for Social Work in Zagreb. The study was conducted on students of three courses: Law School, Study center of Social Work and Study center of Public administration and finance. The study included 207 students. The instruments used were: Test Anxiety Inventory (Spilberger i sur., 1978., prema Arambašić 1985.) Positive and Negative perfectionism scale (Positive and Negative perfectionism scale, PNPS; Terry short i sur, 1995), Automatic Thoughts during Learning and Taking Exam Questionnaire (Živčić-Bećirević, 2002). The results showed that there is a significant correlation between negative perfectionism and test anxiety. It was also found that there was no statistically significant difference that students with lower years of study had higher levels of exam anxiety. Furthermore, there is a significant correlation that students who have studied for a longer period of time have higher levels of exam anxiety. The results showed a statistically significant negative correlation between test anxiety and academic achievement and that the negative automatic thoughts correlated with poorer academic achievement, but that the positive thoughts were not significantly correlated with academic achievement and the length of studying.