"Throwing Out" questions on a test

[DawnJ]

I was surprised to see how many questions are "thrown out" on our nursing and pharm tests. If the class doesn't do well, the teacher looks at which questions were missed by the most students and will add that many points to everyone's score.

I can understand if a question is poorly worded or was not covered in the materials, but excluding it because a large percentage of the students missed it?

Do you see this in your programs? I'm suspicious it is a way of inflating the grades when a class overall isn't cutting it.

[afterseason, ASN, RN]

IMHO, the instructor should do an item analysis (statistical measures, can be done with Excel) to see if the item had any correlation to test grade. If the 'A' students got it right but the 'C' students missed it, it is probably a very good test item. If the 'A'students miss it, it's probably not a good question and should be thrown out.

This is how it is done at my school. It seems very effective. After all, they are human, and sometimes they do throw in a poor question without realizing it. They usually only end up "throwing out" 2-3 questions, and even then they do not actually throw it out. They either give the point to everyone, or they determine that perhaps one answer other than what was considered correct was a common choice, and they will only give the point those those who had either that or the original correct answer (if that makes sense).

[Skips, MSN, RN]

Yes, my program does this. If less than 30% of the test takers missed the question, it gets "thrown out", but it usually doesn't help our grades that much. If you get the question right, you don't get any points back anyway.

[Stephalump]

I took a test recently that had questions "thrown out" which lowered my grade. I have learned that throwing out questions is common practice at my school. My experience in my prereqs has been that you maintain credit for the questions if you got them right, so EVERYONE will benefit from the question dropping. Now for my first test my grade dropped a full letter grade because I was right on the edge of the grade initially. For me this was very frustrating because I knew the answers to the questions they dropped (because we reviewed them in class and I knew WHY the answer was right). I missed some other questions due to not taking my time to really read the question, and I own that, it was my fault for missing those questions. Some people had the same grade after the questions were dropped, some had higher grades, and some had lower grades like myself.

The way I try to think of it (so Im not feeling discouraged by my grade going down) is that had these questions never been on the test to begin with, my grade would still be what it is now. Now I just have to prepare myself for the future. I don't really believe its a way to inflate our grades here, because they were questions that over 25 or 30% of the class missed.

I would be absolutely furious if my grade dropped. There have been numerous times that maybe a question wasn't worded very well, but I still figured out what was being asked of me and I got the question right.

My program will accept multiple or all answers for a "bad" question, meaning at least a few people get a couple points extra per test, but no one loses points. To me that's about as fair as it gets.

[traumanurse2b?]

I would be absolutely furious if my grade dropped. There have been numerous times that maybe a question wasn't worded very well, but I still figured out what was being asked of me and I got the question right.

My program will accept multiple or all answers for a "bad" question, meaning at least a few people get a couple points extra per test, but no one loses points. To me that's about as fair as it gets.

Believe me I was furious. I actually had a panic attack because I was so upset. I contacted the professor about it but it will not be changed. It was very disheartening for me as a first semester student, but I've learned to buck up. Our next test is coming up, and Im praying my grade doesn't go down again.

[Skips, MSN, RN]

Yes, my program does this. If less than 30% of the test takers missed the question, it gets "thrown out", but it usually doesn't help our grades that much. If you get the question right, you don't get any points back anyway.

erm, I mean if less than 30% of test takers GET THE QUESTION RIGHT. hahaha. What was I thinking!

[blackvans1234]

My program won't do that for the most part.

Last semester my instructor was not open to interpretation, and her powerpoints were always spot on with her test questions (there was hardly any way someone could argue a question)

This semester, my instructor threw out a question (of course I got it right).

[akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P]

My program does "throw out" certain questions, but only after investigating the question in the first place. If the question isn't valid, then it gets tossed out and everyone that "missed" that question gets their score bumped up by that one question. Those that got the question initially "correct" don't get the corresponding bump as they'd have gotten "that" score anyway. Often there might simply be a word or two that could have been used/phrased differently in some manner that would have brought clarity to the question so that the actual correct answer could be better discerned. Most of the questions that got tossed were those that very easily could have had 2 correct answers (and weren't SATA). Rarely we'd have more than one or two questions that get tossed per exam. The norm is that none get tossed.

[Music in My Heart]

The easy solution with these goofy multiple choice tests (the very concept of which is lame, IMO) is to always have a none-of-the-above... and then evaluate challenges on a case-by-case basis.

[Loloberry]

We get questions thrown out all the time. We don't see grade inflation in our program though because if you got it right your grade actually goes down. It really kind of sucks. The people who got it wrong benefit while the people who got it right are essentially penalized. Oh we'll, only three more months and I'm done!

[pinksapphire]

This topic reminds me of our society in general. Don't hurt their ego, make sure everyone passes, there are no winners or losers. Make everyone feel warm and cozy.

I am a 3rd semester nursing student (non-traditional). I work extremely hard for the grades I earn. I have taken tests with some pretty bad questions and even worse answers. I have also taken tests that the professors have 1. Discovered a mistake with the answer key prior to publishing the grade or 2. Listened to the rationale given by the students for why the supposedly "incorrect" answer was chosen. As a general rule it has been my experience that if a test question/answer can be proven by what was in the text or PowerPoints than either the question is thrown out if there in fact was no right answer, or both answers are accepted. But to throw out questions or increase points to make sure "everyone" passes?

I most certainly do not want that nurse caring for me or my loved ones that "passed" nursing school by instructors increasing scores so that their pass averages look good.

I have approached instructors in a respectful and private manner to provide textbook information that supports the necessity for changing a test answer. I have not received a test grade that was altered to increase the class average.

I do feel that there is frequently not enough "proofing" of exams prior to them being given. This causes anxiety and frustration to those of us taking the exams. When a nursing program has been around for a long time and they questions have been recycled I am not sure why debates should be necessary over questions or answers. I would think this would have already have been corrected, but possibly it is the first go around for that question. I do support correcting an accepted answer because it should be corrected. I do not support changing grades just so everyone passes. And I realize that the NCLEX should wean these people out but I would think that even if you can pass the NCLEX you may not be an acceptable nurse. There is not room in this profession for very many if any whoops. And even less room for excuses. But just my humble opinion. Now off to study for my final in Med Surg 2!

[Best_Name_Ever]

Some of my professors do this, but only after doing a statistical analysis. The analysis tells her how many people answered ABCD. If a large amount of people answer B, but the answer is C, people who answer B&C both get the points. She feels that the question was not clear then. But say the answer is C, and not alot answer C but the answers are spread between ABD ...then she doesnt give points cuz she feels like that was a good question because nobody could figure it out.

Doing it this way, I believe is totally fair. It usually never changes our grades more than 1 or 2 points. Our professor showed us the analysis and it really is fair based on all the math & numbers.

[brillohead, ADN, RN]

My current instructor does analysis of the Scantron results and gives points back accordingly.

Like bsnstudent16 said, if there was some ambiguity where either of two answers could have been considered correct, you get the points if you answered either the actual correct answer or the (upon further review) also correct answer, but if you answered either of the other two options, you're out of luck. In that case, it's considered to be a "good enough" question that you should have gotten at least one of the two answers that ended up being accepted as correct, but if you answered either of the other two you were just too far off base to warrant any credit for the question.

I've seen this same instructor give credit for all four answers if the statistics show that it was just a crappy question all around, with answers all over the place because NOBODY could really figure out what was being asked. But when a question is "thrown out" like that, it doesn't lower anyone's score -- if you got the right answer (either by luck or b/c you knew the material), your grade remains the same; if you got the wrong answer, your grade gets a bump.

And I've also seen this same instructor REFUSE to throw out a question, even if the entire class missed it, because she knew for a fact that she had mentioned the exact same scenario in lecture, so there was no excuse to be had.

Questions are only thrown out (or given multi-credit) by this instructor, however, if it's the first time they've been used on an exam in her class. If it's a question that has been on previous tests with no problems, it's already been determined that the question itself is a valid, understandable, relevant question; if you miss it, that means it's your own darn fault.

Because of the complexity of NCLEX-style questions and the overall lack of grammar/reading prowess in the population in general, it can be difficult to create questions that include the necessary information and also the unnecessary information (which you need to weed out to find the stem of the question) with enough clarity that the actual question being asked can be properly discerned. For example, during exam review discussing a thrown out question, this instructor took our feedback (about the specific wording that threw us off) into consideration -- she'll use the same overall question on future exams for future classes, but with the wording adjusted to remove the ambiguity that resulted in many of us getting the answer wrong.

IMO, this is all a fair way to go about it, without resulting in unearned "grade inflation".