Honest opinion when is it enough

[my4helpers]

Quick background, I started school back in 09 and took it slow and got all of my prereqs out of the way. Started nursing school in the fall of 2011 did wonderful in fundamentals, but sadly I didn't pass chemistry. So I had to sit out a full year, but in that year I got all of my fine arts and humanities out of the way, so it wasn't a total waste. Got back into the program in the spring of 2013 and started med surge 1 and failed. At this school, if you fail twice your out even if chemistry wasn't considered a actual nursing course. I was down about a week but I picked myself up and started another nursing program in the fall of 2013. I had to take a couple of prereqs and got those out of the way and then in the spring of 2014 I started the actual program. This program is 5 semesters unlike the last one was only 4 semesters long. So I just completed my third semester and was supposed to graduate this coming July, but sadly I failed my final today which was med surge 2. If I decide to stay and not give up I will now graduate next December instead of this coming July. So my question is when is it enough to just toss in the towel. I am exhausted and overwhelmed not to mention ALL the money I have invested. I have wanted to be a nurse ever since I was 5 and I will be 36 this month. This is not something that I woke up one day and thought lets give nursing a try. I have never wanted to be anything else, but I just feel like I am not smart enough to go on. I am wonderful in the clinical setting, but taking test not so much. I had a wonderful friend quiz me over the phone for almost two hours this morning before my test and I got the majority of the answers rights, but still failed the test. Any advice??

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

Can you post an example of a question you answered wrong, what you answered/why you answered that and what the correct answer was? Maybe then we can help you understand what you're doing wrong.

[LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN]

My instructor seems to think that I don't know the why behind each answer and my friend says I read way too much into the question. I am not sure where she gets her questions from but it's so frustrating when I get the practice questions right at home, but still fail the test.

Do you understand the rationales behind the questions?

[I_slapped_Ouiser]

In our program, whenever anyone failed a class (or just withdrew from even one class and, therefore, was taken out of "normal progression through the program"), a semester-long remediation course was required before students could continue with the program. I withdrew from one class with pre-clinicals at night to attend to a family crisis, and although I have a master's degree in a different subject, I still had to take that remediation class. It was a pleasant surprise, because we took study skill assessments, note taking classes, and had to actually use Cornell method note taking on the chapters of our lowest-scored test (whichever one it happened to be).

I had a lot of extra time to take NCLEX review books and I would also recommend that you look into an NCLEX review course- If I would have known how helpful they were, I would've taken it after my first semester. Practice questions were not helpful to me unless they were NCLEX review questions, because our tests were written that way- some of the textbook publisher's practice questions were less rigorous and didn't serve me well at all, so I stopped relying on those. I began highlighting the main points in rationales to questions I missed, and eventually patterns appeared- I was horrible at SATA formatted questions, so I bought SATA books. I was confused with fluids & electrolytes, so I re-wrote the material from the rationales and focused on that during the NCLEX review course.

Several people in my class spent countless hours of time and I don't know how much energy fighting instructors about how "awful" their test questions were. But, they were NCLEX-style. They included select all that apply on their tests, as does the NCLEX. They weren't going to change. So, when I changed the way I studied, I began doing better on our tests.

Some kind of remediation (self-imposed or not) surrounding test taking strategies, would probably help you. If you don't have a remediation to attend there, then I would take an NCLEX prep course and use it as your own "remediation". Whatever you decide to do, I applaud your resilience and dedication. Sometimes, it's not about how hard we work in school- it's about how we decide which tools to use- and I honestly think that's all this is, in your case. Test anxiety and NCLEX style test questions are a pretty common combination for reasons to both fail, and when addressed, succeed. Wishing you all the best, and the energy to keep on keeping on!

[bsoltis]

So, what did you decide? I searched your name after I read a post you had commented on about starting nursing school in 2011. The same nursing school you had applied to, I just applied to myself.