Schooling through a dressage test

With lots of students preparing for competitions, some of them are identifying a new challenge in learning to ride a dressage test.  But not just RIDING it, schooling it.  It's hard enough remembering the movements, the order, the reference points for the circles, etc.  It's even harder to remember that your task is to show the judge how well your horse can go.  There's no point getting brilliant work at home when you can take six trot circles to prepare for every canter and there's no pressure and no atmosphere.  The basic work has to be reproducible under tension-inducing conditions.  And you, as a rider, need to plan for this in your schooling.  Identify the exercises that create the softness and achieve and maintain attention and rideability that you need for riding a test.
Horses and riders who are only beginning to learn about contact need to look for opportunities to create submission and softness in the jaw.   So, as you're riding up the centre line and straightening the horse using the reins, pay attention to how the horse's mouth feels as you make the correction and give a corresponding release for any tiny softening you feel.  Find a hundred reasons to soften your hands - every correction or flexion aid is an opportunity to check the submission and encourage lightness in your horse.  Before corners, through corners, after corners, before transitions, through transitions, after transitions, keep that jaw mobile, keep the neck straight and the poll flexing in, then reward with soft and still hands.
RIDING the test will give the horse the best opportunity to display the qualities of rhythm, suppleness, impulsion, straightness and collection - the training pyramid against which all of the dressage tests are written and judged.