The recent introduction of a personal literacy and numeracy test (LANTITE) has been part of tighter accreditation of Initial Teacher Education programs across Australia. This article focuses on pre-service teachers' experiences, beliefs and feelings about the new high-stakes testing regime. The data are drawn from a six-month project intended to evaluate students' experience in a first-year university mathematics unit. The focus in the present article is on students' responses to open-ended questions about their expectations of the unit, their level of confidence in areas of using and teaching mathematics and their thoughts and feelings about their own skill level being assessed. Results from 85 participants indicate that alongside experiencing high levels of mathematics related anxiety, positive and hopeful attitudes towards testing strongly appeared. Individual differences and self-regulated learning processes were also dominant in participants' responses as reported in this article. These findings contribute to the growing body of research on the importance of growth mindset and instilling hope and optimism in pre-service teachers.