Rope breaks are definitely exciting. I vividly remember my first one,
six years ago prior to solo. It had me so worked up I had trouble
sleeping the night before, but the actual event was no where near as
bad as I'd imagined. The worst one I've experienced was when the tow
plane had "engine failure" and started slowing down after I was flying
but before it left the ground. Realistic, but my heart still beats
faster when I think of it. Another high stress situation, as pointed
out above, is when you're just below pattern altitude about to turn
downwind and you have lots of choices of what to do. But for all the
drama, I believe rope break practice is very necessary - in my short
soaring career I've seen 3 unintentional rope breaks. All turned out
just fine, because the pilots knew what they had to do.

-John