HELP!

I’m a student in a VN program and am in the second semester of the program. Well , nearing the end of the second semester and I must say,,,,,, I didn’t do so hot. Although I know, I could’ve put in a lot more effort to begin with , so I’m not blaming anyone. But I did want some advice on just basically how to study in general. This is what I did for the semesters. Pretty much just read and answer a the NCLEX style questions at the end of the chapter. Which for the most part ended up being rough but around 10-15 questions. However, our instructor this semester for medsurg 2 used to be an RN instructor, and she is basically asking us RN level questions. So I haven’t done so hot on them, yet my classmates have. So I’m wondering am I doing something wrong? I mean I remember everything I read the next day and be pretty good with it but then come a couple of days later, it just slips my mind. I mean if I see a certain disease process I’ll recognize it. But won’t be able to snap off patho, signs and symptoms, or interventions just from memory. And like I’ve mentioned before I do read the chapters, probably at least 2-3 times. And I’ll be honest don’t really take notes much during lecture because ,,, I’ll be honest again I’m not too fond of writing. And if I write,, I feel I just lose what the instructor lectures about. So I could really use some since I may be knocking on the door very soon of having to take this semester over again and I know it doesn’t matter how long it takes,, as long as you make it through. But I just don’t want to be struggling as much as I am now with studying ? so any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!