Fair warning, this is a rant more than anything else.
I'm taking A&P I right now with 3 weeks left in the semester. I started off strong but my grade is on the decline. I work hard and study often, but I never feel like I'm studying the right things.
We took a quiz on Monday that I felt SO prepared for. Before the weekend, the professor gave us some guidelines on things to study. "Bone development, very important. Fracture repair, very important. Focus primarily on your notes." I knew my notes forward and backward and reinforced the concepts with notes from the book. Of course when the quiz landed on my desk, there were NO questions on fractures or bone development, and he lined up a bunch of bones from the models for us to identify. We've NEVER had to do that for a quiz, so of course I wasn't expecting it and only got a couple of them right. I understand that it's his class and he can do what he wants, but sometimes it feels like he's intentionally misleading us and I'm becoming very frustrated. Obviously he's not going to spoon feed us each and every question, but why tell us something is important when it obviously isn't?!
I have an exam on Monday to study for and I'm so overwhelmed trying to prepare for it. I know the obvious solution is "just know EVERYTHING" but there's not enough time in a day for that! We covered the entire skeletal system in 2 lectures. He gave us a packet outlining all of the bones we "need" to know but at this point I don't even believe that he'll stick to it! I've never had a problem like this. I've always been an A student, and I hate feeling like I'm putting "A effort" in but not getting the results to prove it. If I did as poorly as I think I did on that quiz, I'll have a B+ average with one exam and a final exam left to go. A B+ in this class would really hurt my chances of getting into my program. I NEED to pull off at least an A-.
Thanks for listening (reading). Any advice on how to study for a professor like this?
You're welcome! Another kind user on AN was nice enough to give me that link when I was a pre-nursing student. It was so helpful and I'm glad I can pass it on. I still review the quizzes once in a while, just to keep the info fresh in my mind. You definitely need to have a SOLID understanding of Anatomy & Physiology in order to understand pathophysiology in nursing school! :)
Thanks for the links and advice! A lot of people in my class are taking this course for a second time, so while some are definitely as frustrated as I am, I can't say everyone is having the same level of difficulty. I wrote to my professor last night to ask him about the format of the exam. He told us the last one would be multiple choice and it was all fill in the blanks! Hopefully he'll get back to me before tomorrow night when it's time to take it. As far as being distracted when I study, I have a 3 year old daughter and work part time, so yes, I am distracted the majority of the time lol. My fiance is great about helping me out with her, but I don't have hours upon hours to myself as is probably ideal. I do the best I can in the time I've got, which just might not be good enough :/ I'll definitely check out the links. Hopefully they'll make a difference!
Just wanted to give a quick update. I got a 95 on my last exam!! The links in this thread helped TREMENDOUSLY and I'm going to continue to use them for the muscle system. Thanks for the help guys!
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pmabraham, BSN, RN
1 Article; 2,568 Posts
Thank you for the links!