Failed CRNE exam being good prepared

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Failed first time CRNE exam on february 2008.:cry:

I was sure that I will pass because I had 90% of success while training CNA prep guide (4-ed) and the exam appeared me easy enough.

I had a lot of questions from the CNA guide on exam.

Is it possible that exam questions could be slightly different (one - two key words) but I had already the answer in my memory...?

Maybe someone had similar problems

What is the difference between nursing prep guide 2-3-4 editions (I used only 4-th edition) and where to find early editions.

Taking private teacher (tutor) for this exam is good idea?

I read that pass rate for nurses educated outside Canada is much lower that Canadians (45-65% vs 92-95%),and I am one of them.:cry:

el_2008 - I took the same exam as you in Feb 2008, but didnt think there was same questions as in the Prep-guide. As the others have advised you I encourage you NOT to try memorizing the questions and answers from the prep-guide if you want to succeed. What I would advise you to do is to use the prep-guide only to understand what is the philosophy behind the question setting. I did the prep-guide and read the Standards of Nursing as my only preparation for the exam and even my time was up too fast in the first period in the exam (I had no time to read some of the last questions...) I did pass. And... I am foreign educated nurse as well...and english is not my first language...

The key I found most important is to read the question throughly and find what it is that they are really asking. Then mark the answer that you by first sight think is the right one. And not be thinking too long one question...you might run out of time :rolleyes:

Good luck to you!

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Specializes in LTC, public health, School, now Med/surg.

I used the 4th edition ( still had short answer questions) and I used NCLEX preparation materials. One thing that maybe throwing you is if you run into a stumper question that you don't know the answer to. There is a tendency to hang up on that and make silly mistakes after. When you look at a particular subject. Think about the nursing process and how it works for each subject. What are the priorities.

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Specializes in Gerontology.

One more piece of advice, although in todays computer age I'm not sure if its relevant.

Make sure you put the answer to the question in the right place - answer 1 in space 1, answer 2 in space 2, etc.

I know somone who failed because she skipped a question and put the answer to the next question in that space - ie put the answer to question 10 where question 9 should be. She knew what she did when go to the end of the exam and had one left over space, but it was too late to go back and figure out where she went wrong.

Also - go with your first instincts, they are often correct.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

When taking the exam, its not good to memorize the answer because they might change only one word on a given situation that can also change the answer. Its better if you understand the whole situation or as what stated above the philosophy why you should do this and that. Because no matter how they srumble the whole situation, you wont be confused because you know the whole process.

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When I wrote the CRNE or any other multiple choice for that matter, I made it a habit to circle, underline or rewrite key words of the question. Some are obvious but I found circling words like "Not" or "doesn't" or "wouldn't" saved me a number of times from making stupid mistakes. ie: If your patient is not improving, which of the following wouldn't you do?

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suzanne4 and janfrn made some good points. learn from them.

i took my cgfns last march 12, and just like you some of the questions were really familiar because they're quite similar in the cgfns guide book. but i took time to read through each question since they were rephrased...asked in a different way, or it was a familiar question but it was asking for something different. the cgfns guide did warn readers that questions found in the cgfns guide book would not come out in the actual exam, so memorizing answers is not really a good idea. maybe that's how it is with other prep guides too...

the next crne will be on october, right? learn from your mistakes. make good in your preparation. good luck!

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, PCVICU and peds oncology.

Actually, the next CRNE is June 4th. The application deadline is the April 3.

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Thank all for suggestions. I am preparing for June, 2008 exam.

Multiple choice questions strategies is my biggest problem. I will maybe take a private CRNE Tutor ($$$.:cry:) to take all the chances.

I study Mosby's Canadian Nursing Review (that I will know pretty well by the time of exam :)) and Fundamentals of Nursing (Canadian edition by Kozier, Erb). Maybe someone can suggest good review books (official list of CRNE preparing literature is so long...)

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Do not think that it is the stratgies that got you, but the fact that you memorized questions and answers. If you take a minute to think about it, they are not going to be giving you the questions in advance that are on an exam like that. So, if they look familiar, it means that keys words were changed or altered to require a different answer.

I would save your money and focus on understanding the rationales behind each and every answer.

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suzanne4

I don't try to memorize questions - answers. It's happen automatically (I have good memory). I am not familiar with multiple questions exams. I use questions to UNDERSTAND, what answer should be. Usually I do NEW questions with 80 - 90% of success (the second time I pass the same questions even after few months - 95-100%).

When I see the same (or very similar) question on the exam, I see the answer...:cry:

So the good resource to deal with multiple choice questions is the MUST for me.

P.S. I have a lot of years of experience, including Canadian, I perform very well at work (MUCH better that some people who pass the exam).

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I would pay more attention to the rationales and why a particular answer was selected. The questions should be secondary. This will get you thru the exam.

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please dont take offense what am about to say.

If you indeed have a "good memory" as youve said - then you would have recognize the difference in the Prep guide questions compared to that of the actual exam.

There are LOTS of us who took the same exam and used the same prep guide - but i / we never encountered the same question in the actual exam. And think about it - why would the CNA write exactly the same questions and put the same in the CRNE?

And i definitely agree that the exam will not define on how you work/perform as a nurse.

My best advice is to move on from that failed exam and change your strategy or enroll yourself in a group study. Stop dwelling on that one failure. Prepare for your next exam very early on and we are hoping/wishing for ur success.

Much luck to you.

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