Desperate Need For Advice

[sestelle]

I am in my 2nd semester ADN. I have not changed anything different about my study habits but I am doing very poorly compared to last semester. I don't know what to do. My first semester I was getting 90s and 85s on all my tests. This semester I got a 77.5 and a 75. The third exam I orginally got an 85 but the instructors decided to throw the exam out and retest it because there was a fire alarm in the middle of the exam. I thought that it wasn't a big deal because it would be my chance to get in the 90s. The test was 25 questions worth 4 points each. That started giving me a panic attack and the test questions were harder. I ended up with a 76. I was angry and upset and I still am. I read all of the chapter before class, I record the lectures and listen to them over when I'm driving or at the gym, I make note cards on the power point and go over those. I make a study guide based on the objectives and I take practice tests from the Saunder's nclex review and I do the questions in the back of the book. I have a lot of stress in my life but it's always been that way and I deal with it. what can I do to get back to the grades I was getting last semester?

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

Every semester gets harder all the way to graduation. People regularly have this sort of experience, and yes, people do fail out of programs having just squeaked by until that final last semester exam.

The thing is that you have to retain everything you learned before, including all your prerequisites, and use it at a higher level. You have probably never had to do this in any curse of study before. Therefore what you need to do is not focus on memorizing data points and PP slides, but truly understanding them and why they are significant, how they fit in to the bigger scheme of things. If you can't close your book at the end of a page and look at the ceiling and say why that matters, you don't know it well enough to move on...and your grades will not move on, either.

So. If you are studying things from an MCLEX review book, make good and sure that it tells you not only why the right answers are right, but why the distractors (the wrong ones) are wrong. If your book doesn't do that, get a different book that does. There are big threads here on AN you can search and find out about why people chose the review books they did.

Also look at the threads that say what you should do if you failed NCLEX. Why? Because it's the same problem, and the answers and hints are the same.

[motheringheart]

Buy at least two different NCLEX review books amazon has some good deals on previous publication years. Review the sections that pertain to exams and answer all the questions. Each semester in nursing school gets harder. Schedule more study time. Answer more questions. You can do this! Also talk to your professor ask for advice.

[la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN]

It sounds like anxiety is a big issue for you. It sounds like you're pretty well committed to studying as much as you can but I wonder if a lot of that is in-one-ear-out-the-other kind of studying. I could never listen to lectures that I recorded again, especially not while driving or at the gym. That's just not how I learn. If learning by listening is your thing then keep at it. However, if you're struggling with recall on the tests, maybe that's not quite working for you and you may need to re-evaluate what you're doing in terms of how capable you are of answering questions. I second the advice to get NCLEX review materials. I've been using the Saunders prep book since OB and it has made a WORLD of difference in how I test. It's not so much that I am studying the concepts (because, personally, I am secure in my understanding of patho thus far and use my care plans as a means of augmenting and deepening my understanding) but I am constantly answering questions and PRACTICING MY CRITICAL THINKING. You can memorize stuff all you want but if you're incapable of applying that info it means nothing.