Failed -- unacceptable reason

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So, I am out of my nursing program because I did not pass an exam by one point. However, my answer that I chose for the question was taken directly from the book. I tried to challenge it, but it could not be accepted for who knows what reason (?) I am pissed....not sure what to do anymore...spoke to all people of the nursing faculty and they've been dismissive about it....please help. I am miserable right now

I usually agree with the "it's not really one point, it's many one points over time" argument. But if the question was truly written in a way that the book answers exactly, it's simply wrong to deny the point.

Sometimes students point to their textbook and say "See? Here it is in black and white!" But upon further examination, the test question was written in such a way as to test if the student is paying attention to a small difference from the situation presented in the book (rather than keying in a word and regurgitating verbatim from the book).

Make sure that's not what happened here, then escalate up the chain. If your answer was correct, you should get credit for that.

3 Votes
Specializes in ICU, trauma, neuro.
On 10/22/2019 at 10:27 AM, Horseshoe said:

I usually agree with the "it's not really one point, it's many one points over time" argument. But if the question was truly written in a way that the book answers exactly, it's simply wrong to deny the point.

Sometimes students point to their textbook and say "See? Here it is in black and white!" But upon further examination, the test question was written in such a way as to test if the student is paying attention to a small difference from the situation presented in the book (rather than keying in a word and regurgitating verbatim from the book).

Make sure that's not what happened here, then escalate up the chain. If your answer was correct, you should get credit for that.

Your question assumes at least a basic level of "due process" that may or may not be present. Thus, I had several exams where we could not even compare our answers to the correct answers (this was not in my MSN program thankfully, but rather my ASN program). Thus, I felt confident that where I had picked "c" as correct they has simply "mis -keyed" the exam. To determine such a fact it is necessary to have access to your exam selections verses the answer key. Also, on more than one occasion the "browser" software would "switch" or delete a selection (and it was a seemingly random process) so one had to be exceedingly careful that this wasn't occurring all under a time restriction. I feel that much of the problem occurs from a reluctance of instructors to use exam keys provided by text book makers due to fears of cheating. The problem is that to make a good exam is truly difficult and requires a good deal of effort, and testing analysis (one reason that the NCLEX and ANCC, and SAT's have questions that are not scored, but are there to establish metrics as to which ones would make good questions). I equate this "fear of cheating" to Walmart having aggressive "anti theft" individuals harass you on the way out over receipts. Sure they may shave a few dollars off their thefts, but as a result I do all my shopping at Target Publix, or Aldi;s. You assume a fair and rational process when in many cases it may be anything but...

The problem is that to make a good exam is truly difficult and requires a good deal of effort, and testing analysis (one reason that the NCLEX and ANCC, and SAT's have questions that are not scored, but are there to establish metrics as to which ones would make good questions).

For my first degree (education), we had to take an entire class on testing, and a great deal of that class involved what makes a good exam (and why). For our big project, we had to design an exam based on given data that we allegedly used to create our course. The exam had to be thorough, fair (especially in terms of time spent on a given subject that must be reflected in how many times in the test that material is tested, etc.), non-biased, etc.

It wasn't easy, and I came out of there convinced that 99% of teachers have never taken such a course.

Students should ask themselves why he or she is in that position in the first place. A student can have a bad exam and it typically won't wreck their chances of being successful in the course. When students are not successful at the end of course and just misses passing-he or she most likely missed 15-20 questions throughout the semester and put themselves in jeopardy.

1 Votes
On 10/20/2019 at 9:17 AM, B52 said:

Some instructors are too lazy to create their own exams based on the material taught and read. Instead, they pull questions from other textbook manuals, which can be confusing. I still remember a question about a drug classification. Nowhere in the textbook or lecture notes was that drug mentioned. I knew the answer because I was working as an LPN in a drug rehab facility. Many students got that question wrong. It could have been the cause of someone failing the class.

I had a professor who used our Prep U questions, but changed the answers to what she though was right not what Prep U said. This was on our final only 3 people myself being one of them passed final. 15/69 passed the class and they had to reverse 10+ questions. Not sure why professors feel the need to do this.

1 Votes
Specializes in ICU, trauma, neuro.
2 hours ago, stockmanjr said:

I had a professor who used our Prep U questions, but changed the answers to what she though was right not what Prep U said. This was on our final only 3 people myself being one of them passed final. 15/69 passed the class and they had to reverse 10+ questions. Not sure why professors feel the need to do this.

Yes, in some cases the professors seem to have such a poor sense of the material that a detailed understanding of the subject matter may actually compromise your ability to get a question correct. How they are able to live with themselves (when this contributes to their student’s failure) is confounding.

Your beliefs on this matter will get you into a lot of trouble in the future if you continue to pursue nursing because as a nurse you will always have to know more and do more.

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