Failing complex for 2nd time!

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Sep 16, 2007

first of all, since this is a new teacher you need to get to know her and how she thinks. it never hurts to brown nose. visit her in her office. ask her what you need to focus on for the next test. ask her what other supplemental books she would suggest you read to help understand some of the concepts she is teaching you in class. while there, look at the books in her office to see what she reads. it might give you some clues as to her clinical background in nursing. most instructors worked in one or several clinical areas and they have a lot of expertise in that area. stands to reason that their test questions are going to be a little more focused on things that she saw and experienced in her own practice. a nursing instructor is not someone you should fear as an authority figure, but view as a colleague. when you get your license, you will be colleagues. so, be friendly with her and do some poking around to get the "psych" goods on her.

as for answering test questions, she may just be better at writing them. i used to help write test questions for one of the national certification exams and there are seminars we were sent to in order to learn to write these kinds of questions. maybe this instructor has had this extra training. i found a very nice powerpoint for students on how to take a nursing test just the other day. you might want to look at it while it is still available on the internet (you never know when these things are going to get pulled off the internet).

http://lib2.hacc.edu/nursing/ppt/test_skills_files/frame.html

now, as you are in the later part of nursing school there are a few things you should be considering as you answer each of the questions on your tests, if these are multiple choice questions. nclex is going to be loaded with them.

if you don't have some kind of nclex review book already, you should get one. i have a copy of saunders comprehensive review for the nclex-rn examination, 3rd edition, by linda anne silvestri, but there are others out there. what i like about this saunders book is that is lists signs and symptoms of diseases in the order they occur and the severity. you need to know that kind of information for your critical thinking.
you need to know the pathophysiology of diseases you are being tested over. you must know the progression of symptoms as they go from mild to serious to fatal. this helps you determine priorities of care. interventions are geared to the symptoms.
you must also know the medical tests and treatments that the doctor is going to order. know which tests and treatments fit with each sign and symptom the patient has.
you have got to know the steps of the nursing process and what goes on in each step. nothing will trip you up as badly as placing a test question situation in the wrong step on the nursing process. every step of the nursing process is a link in a chain of events. a test question will often test your knowledge of a break somewhere in the link. most students want to gravitate to nursing interventions which come in step #3 of the nursing process, but be sure that this is what the question is asking. instructors know that students will do this so they use nursing interventions as distracters (wrong answers deliberately designed to draw you away from the correct answer!).
you just have to know the various principles of science, medicine and nursing behind the actions and interventions that are being done for the patient by the nurse and others in healthcare. this is where you pull in information from those pre-requisites you had to take to get into the nursing program.
always ask yourself "why". why does the patient have this symptom? why did the doctor order this? why would the patient be having this particular problem based upon what the question revealed? why? why? why? that is part of what gets you into your critical thinking component on these questions. the answers are often never as easy to find as you think. you have to go through the above things i just listed for you to get to the right answer.

digest what i just wrote above. copy it down and don't lose it because i've just given you the blueprint to improving your grade. the unknown element is you and your thinking cap. you might want to periodically check this and the nursing student assistance forum for an occasional test question that students post for opinions on the correct answer as well. here are recent ones on the nursing student assistance forum. a couple are real stumpers: