Failed my Maternity test

[Msbarelymakingit]

I'm in my second semester of nursing school and I am very stressed and down with the fact that I failed my first Maternity exam! I thought I studied enough, but I guess it wasn't enough since "F" was on my report card. I never got an F in any of my tests! I would take a C any day, but omg... an F is a killer.

I studied with my notes, went over the Silvestri review book and did over 138 Antenatal questions and I still got an F.

I'm pretty down because this Maternity course is for only 8 weeks and it's driving me nutts! I don't think 8 weeks is enough and on top of that, we have assignments, lab and clinicals. It's all very overwhelming.

I don't want to sound like I'm complaining in here, but I need to know how can I pass my next exam. Please share me your tips and tricks!

Thank you!

- MsBarelyMakingIt

[Nolli]

I go off of the professor and the material. Some professors like going off the notes while others have forced me to remember multiple small details in the readings of our text.

Ultimately though you don't just want to pass the course, but be proficient. First of all take a deep breath and relax. Use the nursing process to help you work through this.

ADPIE

Assess

What kind of learner are you? How are you with NCLEX style questions? What material do you not understand? Are you changing your answers?

Diagnose

Find the weak spots

Ex1: Based on the prior if you learn better in a visual format reading, charts, and pictures may help.

Ex2: If you are having problems answering the questions and understanding why the answer is right you need practice questions with rationales

Ex3: If you change the answer constantly you could be costing yourself points

Plan

Set measurable, realistic goals.

Ex: By the end of today I will have covered xyz and will be able to state both the definition and 3 treatments for each

Ex: By the end of the week I will get a practice test grade of 90% or above

Develop a plan to meet those goals

Ex:

-Find and use a format that works for you.

-Spend more time on your problem areas to bring them up to speed.

-Use a book of practice questions and rationales.

-Stop changing your answer unless you have a solid reason. We can convince ourselves to change based on anything.

Implement

Do it!

Evaluation

While the ultimate evaluation is the exam itself you should still evaluate while you are doing it. Are you retaining the information the next day after studying it or do you need to do a quick once over? Is it helping you understand it better?

Lastly tips in general:

Deal with the questions as part of a process; 1st read it and filter out all the extraneous stuff. What is it truly asking? Highlight the key words. Eliminate the wrong answers. If there is more than one possible answer you need to go back to the question and see if there are any modifiers such as "first" or "priority". Pick the answer that is the closest to the right answer as you can get.

Ex: If it asks what intervention the nurse should perform first underline the word intervention. Eliminate what is not an intervention. First is the modifier so although there may be two actions that are right you need to address the priorities. ABCs are a favorite, but whatever would cause the most harm if it were not done is where you should focus.

[NICU Guy, BSN, RN]

Make an appointment and review the test with the instructor. If the test was computer graded (scantron where you shade in the circles) you may have skipped a question and been one off on the questions or if they had Test form A and B and graded yours as Form A when you had Form B.

Unless you totally didn't know the material, which would be apparent while you were taking the test, you shouldn't have flunked the test.