Does your school allow you to keep your tests?

Nursing Students General Students

Published

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?

Specializes in Pediatrics.
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.

0 Votes
Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
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.

0 Votes
Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
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.

0 Votes
Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
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

0 Votes

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.

0 Votes

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

0 Votes

The college algebra class I took last summer let us keep our tests.

Cheryl

0 Votes
Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
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

Why wouldn't they, 2 years of the BSN program is the same stuff that the RN is taught, just like in a lot of programs the first year of the Associates program is what is taught for LPN. Obviously they wouldn't for that last year where BSN's are learning new and extra stuff. But the 2 years we do would be the same material.

0 Votes
Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
The college algebra class I took last summer let us keep our tests.

Cheryl

I would think math is a little different. At least at our school you are required to show your work, so even if you cheated and got the answers you would still have to show how you got them so you would still need to know how to work the problem.

0 Votes
Specializes in informatics.
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.

I have taken my share of multiple choice tests for my undergraduate degree as well as graduate and all of my classes allowed me to keep my tests. Why should Nursing classes be any different than any other subject.

0 Votes
I have taken my share of multiple choice tests for my undergraduate degree as well as graduate and all of my classes allowed me to keep my tests. Why should Nursing classes be any different than any other subject.

Nursing questions are also a lot different than any other subjects. Other subjects the questions are all knowledge based. With nursing questions it's not just as simple as saying "What does dyspnea mean?" They are actual scenarios therefore a lot more effort is put towards them.

0 Votes
Specializes in Utilization Management.

"Why should Nursing classes be any different than any other subject."

Nursing classes are different b/c there is an urgency and desperation to get through for some people. The same urgency and desperation doesn't normally apply to English, Finance, or Psychology degrees, for example. They have to finish for various reasons and some will do anything in order to get through. If that means cheating or seeking out previous tests from previous classes, then so be it. To these people, as long as they pass and graduate, it doesn't matter how many times they have to take NCLEX - getting through school is the real monster.

0 Votes
+ Add a Comment