Grade appeal please help!!!!!

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Hey everyone!

I am trying to do a grade appeal, if approved, i graduate nursing school..

Here is the situation..

On my exam 4, about shock and burns, there was a question about a mechanical ventilator in a burned patient...in one of the answers options it said "bun" instead of burn, so i did not pick it. Of course the misspelled word was the correct answer. I am trying to fight this question and get my point back because one point is all i need to be at a passing grade and to graduate. I am 0.17% away from what i need.

In the beginning of the semester, my professor posted an announcement stating "Never assume I have made a mistake in the answer options. If I have made a mistake it will NEVER count against you" So if this hold true, then this question should be thrown out and I would pass the class. However, my teacher is refusing to go by her word and will not award me the point. In my appeal i brought this up and it was totally ignored by my professor and used "spell check" as an excuse instead.

On top of this, she has now told me (5 days before graduation) that she made another error in calculating my exam score and I actually got one more wrong than she thought. Mind you, this exam was taken at the beginning of the semester and now is being brought up 5 days before graduation when I was trying to get my point back. If my teacher stuck by her word, none of this would be happening.

Does anyone have any tips or similar stories??

Any help would be appreciated.

thank you

If the mispelling really made you not choose the right answer, ask yourself would you really have asked her during the exam if that was 'burns' rather than whatever other word you may have thought it might be. If you would have then I would fight this to the end. I've had to clarify before even the way a question was asked. Then we can turn in an appeal form if it we believed it was a question that was out of context, error, etc.

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All of the posts like this have the same theme in common- if one question was enough to make you fail the course you don't know the material and you shouldn't move on, whether or not that one particular question was correct. Don't get yourself into a position where you are one question away from failing a course and this will never be an issue.

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Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.

D) full thickness buns on the pt's face and neck

:lol2: I laughed so much at this! So, so much...

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Specializes in Medsurg/Tele.

I've had to repeat a course due to only needing 0.12 pts to pass. I never made a fuss because I knew the minimum to pass the class was a 76 and as we reviewed the exam, I understood why I got the answer wrong.

As previously stated, you could've asked whichever instructor that was present if that word was correct, tried to find which answer was better than the others even if there was a typo, or studied more since you knew this was your last semester and was in danger of failing.

As time consuming and heartbreaking it is, understanding the content is important for patient care no matter which position you find yourself in the future when you do pass.

Good luck!

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I agree with you OP. My teacher had a similar sisuation with a word typo on the exam but I knew other answers were wrong and I validated the typo with the professor before I clicked. Though the professor owned up to her mistake and gave everyone the 2 points back anyway. So, I do think you deserve to get those few points back to graduate because it is not your fault but the instructor's fault to make sure that the exam is fair.

I say do whatever you have to do to get those points back.

You actually bring up an excellent point, did others taking the OP's test assume "Bun" was a typo and mark that as the correct answer? Or did they all choose the wrong answer based on the misspelling? I would think that if the instructor reviewed OP's exam she most likely reviewed other test takers answers as well, since she is not giving you the point I would assume the majority of other people answered the question correctly despite the misspelling.

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.
why is eveyone ignoring the fact that the instructor wrote to us "Never assume I have made a mistake in the answer options. If I have made a mistake it will NEVER count against you". The instructor made a mistake in her question and I am simply following her own directions given to us.

I didn't ignore that part...

I would think that the prof's vow not to hold you accountable for her mistake would refer to her believing "C" is the correct answer, but student can argue EBP says "D" is most correct. NOT that she can make what is clearly a typo, and you are absolved of your need to critically think.[/Quote]

And actually I see this lack of critical thinking a big issue. To be honest, this indicates that more time in nursing school would benefit both you and future patients... especially given that you were on the bubble well before this test.

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OP, we are not ignoring your instructors comment, but per your post s/he has reviewed the exam and apparently determined that even with the typo there was enough information correct in the question that the typo was a non-issue. I understand your frustration, in my exams we had tests with typos, at least one every exam, and it was up to US, to either figure out the correct meaning from the question or go to the instructor while the exam was in progress, you said the instructor wasnt in the room. They let you take an exam with no one present? Sorry for your situation.

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Specializes in Med-Tele; ED; ICU.

Really, you didn't pick what appeared to be the right answer simply because of an obvious typo?

That is very poor test-taking and you don't deserve to have the question tossed.

And frankly, if your success hinges on 0.17% between passing and failing, your performance is marginal at best and hardly warrants a boost.

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Really, you didn't pick what appeared to be the right answer simply because of an obvious typo?

That is very poor test-taking and you don't deserve to have the question tossed.

I completely agree! But I have always been against tossing questions anyways. I completely agree with tossing a question if there is EVIDENCE from the textbook that a student can argue why he/she picked the answer they chose and there was actually good reason for it. But it always irked me when instructors would throw out questions just because there was a small group that argued enough that the instructor did it. Just because you had good reasons for picking the wrong answer doesn't mean that it should be tossed out....its still the wrong answer. It doesn't matter the reasoning behind why you chose it. The only time it matters is when you can bring up a page in the textbook or instructor's powerpoint and say, well I chose this answer because the textbook states this or the powerpoint states this and it correlates to the answer choice I chose as well as the correct answer. Then, and only if the information from the textbook or powerpoint actually does show that there could have been another correct answer, should a question be tossed out. NEVER simply because you had a good reason for not choosing the right answer - like a typo being part of the correct answer.

I had only 2 instructors my whole time in school that just simply flat out refused to throw out questions. They said on the first day - don't come begging or pleading for me to throw out a question. I will not do it. I don't need to hear your reasoning as to why you think it should be thrown out. The answer will always be no. Why did they feel so confident that they could say such a thing? One finally explained it because she got sick of people still arguing for questions to be thrown out after exams. She runs item analysis on the exams. Once she explained what item analysis was, it irked me even more when instructors threw out questions! I guess I'm just weird. I never liked it. It just seemed like questions were only being out because students had argued that they had good reasons for choosing the wrong answer. I didn't like it. But, to each his own!

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WOW. I am gasping at the amount of negativity and rudeness at all your responses. I can't believe that most of you are acting like this espically since you have most likely went through nursing school. I came here for support and I got the complete opposite. FOR THOSE WHO CARE: I won the grade appeal, and it was actually found my exam was marked incorrectly and I did recieve a passing score. So I did pass nursing school by quite a few points more than I thought. I hope to others who may be in a similar situation, they get the support they are looking for but it wont be from this site.

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Thank you, I would of asked the instructor but no questions are allowed during the test and she was not present. I did get my deserved point back. Thank you for your support! :)

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I agree with you OP. My teacher had a similar sisuation with a word typo on the exam but I knew other answers were wrong and I validated the typo with the professor before I clicked. Though the professor owned up to her mistake and gave everyone the 2 points back anyway. So, I do think you deserve to get those few points back to graduate because it is not your fault but the instructor's fault to make sure that the exam is fair.

I say do whatever you have to do to get those points back.

Thank you, I would of asked the instructor but no questions are allowed during the test and she was not present. I did get my deserved point back. Thank you for your support!

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