What stress test

By now we've all heard about the so-called "stress tests" that the large banks will be put to. It turns out that the government doesn't really do anything to "stress" the banks, except for the psychological pressure. The test is more like an audit where regulators and bank officers assess the assets the banks have to determine whether it's enough to cover for contingencies like an economic downturn, large than expected defaults on loans, etc. I thought the regulators would do things like reducing the money supply or change the deposit rules to put pressure on the banks, like they would in the engineering world if they want to test something.