Examination Content Confusing

[WaddleDoos]

Hello everyone I am an accelerated RN student in the first semester of a 1 year program and have a question regarding other people's experience with written exams. I would greatly appreciate any insight or advice.

For our school, we are given several multiple choice tests and 1 final examination. Clinical is pass or fail.

The first 2-3 weeks of lecture have been straight forward and focused on introducing nursing to the class along with precautions and basic skills (making beds, taking vital signs). Aside from some relatively heavy amount of reading, I believed the experience to be straightforward. *Don't do this* or *Follow these steps* etc. etc.

However, we had our first test a few days ago and it was extremely frustrating. Our instructors label them "critical thinking exams", but I believe that to be a stretch. I say frustrating because I felt as though there was absolutely nothing I could have done in preparation for this exam; The amount of knowledge base testing that was tested was practically 0 (little material relevant to lecture/book) and we certainly did not cover many of these topics in class. To give an example, the only straightforward question was one presenting a patient with 20/70 vision and asking the test taker to explain what "20/70" means.

The worst part about this exam was that I do not feel the material was difficult at all. Actually, had we gone over this kind of material in any discussion of reading this would have been an incredibly easy exam. The best analogy I can come up with is relating this to going for a job interview. You sit down and expect to be asked questions relevant to your competency and the job at hand, but instead are asked questions like:

1. Do you like my skirt?

2. Do you see this painting here? It was drawn by Da Vinci, what do you think about art?

3. Mrs. Jane Doe, if you were walking in the cafeteria and saw two coworkers chatting and drinking coffee what would you do?

4. If you received an e-mail on the job and it was improperly addressed to you what would be the first thing you would do?

These aren't difficult questions, but you have to know firstly what the person is asking/looking for in an answer, and secondly, you have to know the person himself. I have no idea how to remedy a situation like this. At least if I ran into a test and it was difficult because I was lazy, I could improve. Right now I am just sitting here feeling depressed because, to me at least, this is just so ridiculous and unusual and irrelevant to the material learned in class that I just don't know what to do. I have absolutely no idea what to do. If anyone can please share their insight or help, I would be very thankful.

Thanks.

[Starfish1]

Nursing exams are NOT easy...I started off in first semester doing not great on the first test, and doing a little better with the following exams...I finally worked myself up to A work by second semster. I still get caught up in the reading and doing soooooo much studying that it isn't even funny. I get to the tests and am like wow I really over studied....all nursing exams seem to focus on what the nurse would do in a particular situation....I still today get caught up in a lot of the patho phys. of the disease but really try to concentrate on nursing interventions...I would suggest reading, studying and then going to the book store Barnes and Noble, Borders are great...and applying what you learned to the questions...stopping my repetitive reading sprees and doing ??'s has helped a ton- it helps with even answering those types of questions you aren't sure about....I hope this helps but bottom line, focus on nursing interventions and do those questions!! I think when you start getting more into the disease processes it will help, because every illness has a nursing intervention!=)

[cursedandblessed]

Welcome to Nursing School and critical thinking. In nursing school tests you will find that there is one best answer, two so-so answers, and one really bad answer (at least from my experiences). I've used several books to help prepare for exams. Test Success Series has books for Med-Surg, a beginning nursing, mental health, etc. An NCLEX study book can be helpful as well. These will get you used to the kinds of questions on nursing exams, and help you to review the material.

Other tips that were a recurring theme throughout school:

1. hand hygiene is performed before every procedure you do, and after.

2. Always remember your ABC's: airway, breathing, and circulation: To put it bluntly: no need to worry about changing your patient's brief if they can't breathe.

3. If your patient is having difficulty breathing: raise the head of the bed, unless contraindicated by something else.

[itsmejuli]

Get an NCLEX review book such as the one by Saunders and practice the NCLEX style questions.

THe more you practice and read the rationales, the better you'll get at doing exams.