Feeling Discouraged

One thing that I noticed is that anything that is in italics or a box in the text usually ends up on the test (In in an LPN to RN bridge program). If your school uses a form of standardized testing (such as HESI), it would help to get a small review book (mine is about 300 pages). Some of the tests seemed to come from those books. As brutal as it can be, for something like med/surg you have to read all the assigned text. There's just too much information to be able to cover it all during the lecture (if your program has one) and even if they lecture to the test, the most important test is after you graduate (NCLEX), and anything could show up on there.

If you currently work in the field, do not go by what you do or see at work. Go by the text book. Sometimes facility policy is not up to date with current evidence based practice. This is something that a lot of bridge program students have to remember when they are taking a test. What we were taught originally, what our employer has us currently doing, and then what we have now been taught differently due to the most up to date studies.

Stay motivated and don't let a low score get you discouraged. Yes, you will have to work harder to increase your grade (starting off low will make it feel like an uphill battle to raise the score) but I have had classmates that were failing at midterm and were still able to pass by doing well towards the end. You can do this. Believe in yourself.

Our nursing instructor recommended using pathophysiology for dummies to break down the concepts