Second Pharmacology Test Thursday

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I have my second exam in Pharmacology this Thursday. I did well on the first exam and got 94 but I feel like it didn't count. It was on 10 chapters, but all the basics. This test is on 7 chapters and includes all the drugs and actions and I am stressing out. I have been going over them a lot and they don't seem to stick in my brain. I feel like I am going to be taking this class again. Am I the only one that has felt this way in Pharmacology?

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Specializes in Emergency.

Everyone feels this way. You will be fine since you did so well on your first exam. Believe in yourself. ^_^

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Everyone in my class wonders how you can retain all this information. Especially when the professor says she doesn't remember all these drugs. Isn't that why they make drug guides for your smartphone? Lol. I had a nursing professor last semester for Critical Thinking tell me that you don't need an A on every test to graduate nursing school. So far I still haven't got less than that, but I am ready to accept when I do. I think.

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Specializes in Emergency.

Just group the drugs up. =) It will help.

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Specializes in Neurosurgery, Neurology.

I had my first pharm test this past Thursday. Not sure what I got but I think I did pretty well. For me, as someone mentioned, I grouped all the drugs and went through them by group (I made flash cards). I focused on common suffixes (like "pril", "lol", and "artan"), and made up silly things to help me remember brand and generic (like, I heard on a Youtube video "luke likes to sing" to remember that Singulair is a leukotriene inhibitor, and I just added "luke likes to sing on a mountain" to remember that the generic for Singulair is montelukast...lol). I walked around with the cards everywhere I went, including at work, and would look at them throughout the day. I would only carry a small amount of cards each day to memorize (for example, one day I'd only walk with respiratory drugs, another day CHF drugs, another day anti-hypertensives, etc), until finally I looked at all of them together, mixed up. Seemed to work for me, and I think you'll be fine!

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Specializes in Hospitalist Medicine.

Try grouping them in certain ways to make them easy to remember. Do they affect the CNS the same way? Do they have the same mechanism of action? Do they treat a certain condition?

I found that knowing the physiology behind the drug helped me to remember it better, and is now so helpful to know in nursing school! What will it affect? What are the adverse effects? etc.

Making flash cards really got me through pharm and I'm not a flash card person. Have someone quiz you on everything. The ones you get right, set to the side. The ones you get wrong, study. Then quiz on just the ones you got wrong. When you can answer them all, shuffle the whole pile and see how many you can get right.

Just remember that you will definitely be using this information in nursing school and beyond. The more you learn now, the better. No, you can't possibly memorize every single drug out there. However, if you know how certain classes of meds will affect your patient, you can gauge what you need to assess before, during & after administration of the med.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

check out this thread....Pharmacology Flashcards :yes:

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Making flash cards and searching the internet (pinterest) for tricks to remember is what worked for me.

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You're not alone! I felt the same also. I didn't have a very good Pharmacology teacher, so I had no choice but to teach my self. What helped me A LOT was reading all the chapters and making my own flashcards. Recording the lecture also helped. I devoted 9 weeks to studying for pharm.. Best of luck to you!

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Pharmacology is one of the hardest subjects in nursing school. You will never feel ready for a pharm test, especially since there are millions of things to know about each drug. Try looking up some YouTube videos on those drugs you can't seem to stick in your head. Sometimes there are catchy songs that'll help or sometimes people act out scenarios that will help the info stick. Good luck on your test, let us know how you do!

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Just got my grade for second Pharmacology test and did much better than expected. Made some flash cards and focused on knowing the classes if drugs and what they do and got a 96. Going into test I would have been happy with a 75. Much better. Now I can breathe.

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Specializes in Neurosurgery, Neurology.
Just got my grade for second Pharmacology test and did much better than expected. Made some flash cards and focused on knowing the classes if drugs and what they do and got a 96. Going into test I would have been happy with a 75. Much better. Now I can breathe.

congrats! I just found out I got a 93 on my pharm test, all I wanted was an 80 or higher :).

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