Does your school allow you to keep your tests?

I find my Nursing classes so frustrating because we are not allowed to keep our scored test but only look at it briefly. We are not even allowed to make notes to ourselves on the questions that we missed. I think this is crazy as the test is a great indicator or what your weaknesses are. We can make an appointment to "visit our test", but too me it seems crazy and there is no good rationale for not allowing me to keep my test. How does your school work?

No, I wasn't allowed to keep my test, nor were we allowed to write down the questions we missed, we could put the subject of the question down but not the exact question.

And there is a good rationale for not allowing students to keep their tests or write exact questions down..which is this..sadly people aren't all honest..too many times students have sold tests, given them away to future students who will be taking the tests, etc. The test banks are only so big and teachers want to make sure the integrity of the tests aren't compromised. A few rotten apples have spoiled it for all of us honest people.

**wanted to add** The school kept our test answer sheets for the semester. After the final exams, If someone failed a class, the teachers would pull that students tests and review to make sure nothing was marked wrong that was correct. That was to make sure that the student in fact did fail and that they were not given a lower grade than they actually got. (our tests were hand corrected) Depending on how long posting of final exam grades were posted, if someone failed a class or not.

Edited Apr 13, 2010 by CT Pixie
after thought

[JeanettePNP, MSN, RN, NP]

Depends on the teacher. Some have left the test up online for a given amount of time so we could review. With others we never had the opportunity to review, especially final exams when we never saw the instructor again.

The only people at our school who are allowed to review (look at) the test after the fact are students who failed. Otherwise it's a guessing game - typically after an exam, while we're all on break, we'll go through a 'brainstorming' session of trying to remember want was on the test...with only limited luck:D

In some classes we may have gone over the tests, but not in all of them. And none of them allowed us to keep our tests or to write down questions.

We are not allowed to keep them, obviously they like to keep a nice question bank and not be forced to make new ones up every year.

[Boog'sCRRN246, RN]

We don't get to keep our tests...we don't even have test reviews. We can schedule an appt to go over our test if we didn't do well, but even then we don't get to touch the test. The instructor gives us an idea of what areas we need to work on, but doesn't tell us the exact question.

We don't get to keep our tests either. We have our actual test and a scan tron, we are encouraged to write all over the test and mark our answers on the actual test because it's ours, just not ours to keep. After the test (we have 1 hr) the instructors take up the scan trons, then we have our actual test and they do a quick run through and tell all the answers. No discussion of the answers, just what's right, so we don't have to wait around wondering. Then after wards they schedule an exam review for anyone who wants to look over the test in depth to see why they missed what they missed. Exam review is optional, unless you fail. If you fail you HAVE to go. They said the reason we can't keep our tests is because they spend a lot of time making up the test and the questions and some people aren't honest and tell underclassmen.

[Nurse SMS, MSN, RN]

Nope. They are shredded after review of them, which is done immediately after the test is given, provided nobody was absent. Big time cheating goes on in nursing school. We are also in a room with cameras being filmed during test taking.

Nope, not in the nursing program, and not in the pre-req's either.

What you described was exactly like my Microbiology class. Only she never gave us our exams back in class and never went over them one time. The only way you could see the exam at all was to make an appointment so you could see if for 5 minutes and see where you went wrong.

[That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

We do not get to keep ours. It is even written into the school handbook that if you are caught with an old test you are expelled for cheating. We can schedule an appointment to meet with the instructor to review the test but thats it.

[DisneybearRN]

Well I guess my school is not alone in not letting us have the tests. I think it is crazy considering what I pay for nursing school that they can't just make different test for each class. I don't see why nursing instructors should get off making new ones like the rest of academia! My professor does not use a test bank, but makes up her own, so using up all the questions in no excuse. I think it is ridiculous.

[BeenThereDoneThat74, MSN, RN]

Well I guess my school is not alone in not letting us have the tests. I think it is crazy considering what I pay for nursing school that they can't just make different test for each class. I don't see why nursing instructors should get off making new ones like the rest of academia! My professor does not use a test bank, but makes up her own, so using up all the questions in no excuse. I think it is ridiculous.

Using a new test every semester is not only extremely pain-staking for all professors involved, but it also gives us absolutley no way to consistantly evaluate students' performance over time. Test questions are used over and over again, because (the good ones) work! They compare students' performance from one class to the next, and one semester to the next.

For your professor who does not use the test bank, how do you figure there's 'no excuse' for her to not re-use them? I cannot stress how complcated it is to come up with questions and answers (as well as wrong answers).

And while you may pay and arm and a leg for nursing school, we are not paid an arm and a leg to come up with 300+ new questions every semester, especially when it is proven to be a scientifically unreliable measure.

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

I find my Nursing classes so frustrating because we are not allowed to keep our scored test but only look at it briefly. We are not even allowed to make notes to ourselves on the questions that we missed. I think this is crazy as the test is a great indicator or what your weaknesses are. We can make an appointment to "visit our test", but too me it seems crazy and there is no good rationale for not allowing me to keep my test. How does your school work?

We get a 10 min review to go over our tests and we have to have everything put up can not write down anything. They do it to avoid cheating. We also can not review are test once our next test is taken and we have tests pretty much every week. SO if you miss test review and can't make an appointment and next test has come your outta luck on seeing what you got wrong.

The rationale is to prevent cheating, those that haven't taken the test maybe (some teachers are good at having different tests and some aren't) and to avoid those passing on info to the next semester.

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

Well I guess my school is not alone in not letting us have the tests. I think it is crazy considering what I pay for nursing school that they can't just make different test for each class. I don't see why nursing instructors should get off making new ones like the rest of academia! My professor does not use a test bank, but makes up her own, so using up all the questions in no excuse. I think it is ridiculous.

Making their own up completely can leave room for error although I know many that do well they just tweak other questions, but regardless, your talking about making new questions every semester for years, when you have many tests in a semester with many questions that is a LOT of work. Pretty unreasonable if you ask me. I have no problem with the method we currently have and it seems fair to me at least how my school does it. I check the ones I missed and make a mental note of it for my own knowledge and if I do bad on a test I know the general subjects I did bad on and know to go back over it.

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

Using a new test every semester is not only extremely pain-staking for all professors involved, but it also gives us absolutley no way to consistantly evaluate students' performance over time. Test questions are used over and over again, because (the good ones) work! They compare students' performance from one class to the next, and one semester to the next.

For your professor who does not use the test bank, how do you figure there's 'no excuse' for her to not re-use them? I cannot stress how complcated it is to come up with questions and answers (as well as wrong answers).

And while you may pay and arm and a leg for nursing school, we are not paid an arm and a leg to come up with 300+ new questions every semester, especially when it is proven to be a scientifically unreliable measure.

Exactly, not to mention how many questions can you come up with on some topics that are in the scope of our knowledge. I mean nursing care for a client with X is going to pretty general when you are focusing on the most important parts, for example. If the instructor wanted to add more details for the sake of coming up with new questions she would have to redo the lecture to include this stuff, (or he) then the student will be mad because they didn't pass NCLEX because NCLEX wanted to know that you check LOC first in your nursing assesment not some tiny specified signs that may happen 5% of the time and is a sign in 30 different diseases.

If that makes sense LOL

And I mean really if you think about it, I can't even remember the last time I was allowed to keep a test after it was over, definitely not any of my time in college, and honestly I can't even remember it from high school. Of course I'd love to keep my test, but I completely understand why we can't and I'm okay with that too.

Nope, can't keep them here either.

After the test, you can make an appt with one of the teachers who gave the test, and they'll go over it with you. Which is- they give you your copy of the test, and the answers with rationales, and you can look at it.

I wish we could look at our scantrons to see what ones we got wrong. I don't write what I chose on my test (but maybe I should) so I don't really have a clue as to what I chose. I've only gone in once and reviewed my test, and I guess it was useful. I realized that I was going through the questions too fast, so I slowed down and improved my grade on this last one.

But I can understand why. Because someone could cheat. I guess they could erase an answer on the scantron and replace it with the right one. But why? You're right IN FRONT of the teacher- I couldn't imagine someone being that stupid (because they'd get caught and kicked out)

But then again- we are the LAST RN diploma class at this school- the BSN program starts in the fall. Are they really going to use the same questions for the BSN class that they do the RN class?

Cheryl