3/4 Failed--red flag?

Nursing Students General Students

Published

My main questions are: is this normal? What, if anything, should I do?

I'm at a loss here. I'm in my first semester of an ABSN. About 3/4 of our class of 48 failed our second exam with 88 being the highest. I barely passed it but I don't feel good about the situation overall.

Our professors write their own exams (usually the night before) and there are always typos and questions they have to clarify/change during the exam (question 34 should read 'hypertonic' instead of 'hypotonic'). The questions are very ambiguous (not like NCLEX ambiguous, like 'I seriously don't have enough information to answer this.')

Another problem is that the professor who lectures is not the same one who writes the exam (that one doesn't even attend lecture at all).

I have spoken to both professors, and they just say "You're doing fine. That was a difficult test." Difficult is not the issue here--it's the quality of the exam questions. They have told us that if one student can make an 88 then we all could, and I totally understand that rationale, but even that student admitted that he just happened to guess correctly on a few.

This is an accredited school, but lately our pass rates have been dropping, and they've made changes in the curriculum. If I did talk to the program director, I'd be concerned about repercussions from my professors, and I'm not even sure that's warranted in this situation (yet).

+ Add a Comment